Odds and Ends From The MUSEUM
The 193rd Company of the Civilian Conservation Corps, known as the Baxter Camp, Millinocket, operated from 6/1933 to 10/1935 under the supervision of the Maine Forestry Department. In June, 120 men were sent to Millinocket to build roads. Their biggest project was to build a road from Millinocket to Big Windy Pitch in Baxter Park, twenty-five miles away. They also cleared brush and built bridges on the Appalachian Trail, cleared the right of way for a telephone line, and built a fire tower
Thanksgiving dinner in 1933 for these men of Baxter Camp was a traditional Thanksgiving meal. These hard-working men who had been building roads and camps surely enjoyed it. The same crew also cleared brush and built bridges on the Appalachian Trail, cleared a right of way for a telephone line, built a fire tower and a wharf on Ambejejus Lake.
The Thanksgiving Day menu featured Roast Vermont turkey with giblet gravy and sage dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, boiled onions and Hubbard squash. This was accompanied by sweet pickles, Boston celery, green relish, hot rolls and creamery butter. Dessert consisted of pumpkin pie with American cheese plus grapes, apples sweet cider and coffee.
This is from a small printed menu/program that appears to have been given to each of the men present. In addition to the menu, it lists the roster of the 193rd. A number of these men who were from other areas of Maine later decided to make Millinocket their home and still have descendants here. The program has encouraging words from the group’s leaders and also from Percival Baxter. There are 172 names of the C.C.C. men included plus names of the Army personnel, forestry personnel, leaders and assistant leaders.
A book on the history of the C.C.C. in Maine states they took groups of “undisciplined and untrained kids” and “trained them to use a pick and shovel, to drive heavy road equipment, to blast the rugged terrain with dynamite, swamp and cut heavy timbers for bridges, all hewn with an axe, the adz and the crosscut saws.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was established in 1933 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Its purpose was to provide work for unemployed young men during the Depression of the 1930’s. The state of Maine had 28 C. C. C. camps.
Did you know Millinocket has a large boulder commemorating the Baxter Camp? Located on Medway Road near the fence at the corner of the airport, this boulder is engraved: “C.C.C. 193rd Company, Civilian Conservation Corps, Baxter Camp Site #2103, 1933-1935.” This is near the location of the Baxter Camp (near the Airport Cabins).
Also, the 130th Company, known as the Foster Field Camp, Millinocket, was in operation from 6/1934 through 10/1934 and was under the supervision of the State Park Service. Their job was the building of trails, camp sites, cabins and dams in the Baxter State Park area. The book describes the construction of a “large lunch-ground and campsite” at the foot of the Hunt Trail, the gravelling and smoothing of twenty-two miles of road leading into the camp, and their assistance in fighting a forest fire in 1934 “which for a time menaced the entire park area.”
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