Camp 2775V-C.C.C. (Civilian Conservation Corps) located
south of Mandan, North Dakota started restoration of Fort Abraham Lincoln State
Park July 1934. Camp educational adviser, F. A. Nunn introduced a ceramics
program to the camp. In a camp newsletter of August 1939 the ceramics/pottery
program made several hundred articles the past year. The potter’s wheel was used
for making bowls, pictures, jugs etc. Moulds were used for making animals and
flower pots. Much of the pottery was decorated in colors using a colored mineral
oxide base. Some of the clay products were burned in out door kilns. In the fall
of 1939 plans were being studied for the construction of a kerosene or gas
kiln.
Civilian
Conservation Corps was created in April 1933 and was active thru June 1942. The
Corps was specifically intended for the purpose of relieving the widespread
unemployment and distress existing in the United States. At the same time it was
to provide for the restoration of the country’s depleted natural resources
(lands, forests, and parks) and the advancement of an orderly program of useful
public works.
Most C. C. C. camps were made up of enrollees between the
ages of seventeen and twenty three, but to help the pressing problem of
unemployed World War I veterans some camps were made up of veterans. These camps
were designated with the letter “V” in the camp number and it was this
type of camp that was at Fort Lincoln State Park, Mandan, ND.
