Camp Skokie Valley

In May 1933, FDR approved eight CCC projects in Illinois, one of which was the Skokie Marsh project. Camp Skokie Valley was established a month later on June 27, 1933. More than 1,000 men, organized into five companies, descended on the marsh to begin transforming it into the Skokie Lagoons. The Department of Labor organized the enlistment process, accepting men between ages 18 and 25, later expanded to 17 to 28, whose families were on the relief rolls. Enrollees were paid $30 per month, $25 of which went back to their families. The Army ran the camps where the enrollees lived, and provided them with food, clothing, and medical care.

Camp Skokie Valley began as a tent camp near the marsh along Willow Road. But when the owners of the property requested a rental fee, the CCC decamped to county-owned land on Harms Road south of Glenview Road. In September 1933, workers began constructing the permanent structures of Camp Skokie Valley. Ultimately, the camp consisted of 115 buildings, including barracks for more than 2,000 men, mess halls, kitchens, a chapel, a barbershop, canteens, and classrooms.

Since the Army ran the camps, life was very regimented. Enrollees at Camp Skokie Valley worked in three shifts, with the first truck leaving camp for the job site at 6:30 a.m. and the last truck returning to the camp at 4:50 p.m. The men worked about seven hours per day, five days a week. During their free time, many enrollees attended evening classes at the camp on a variety of academic and vocational topics. Organized sports were also very popular, with inter-company games and competitions held in basketball, baseball, volleyball, and boxing.

Thousands of young men from across the country spent up to two years at Camp Skokie Valley from 1933 until the CCC program ended in 1941.

Camp Skokie Valley Headquarters, 1938.

Inside the barracks at Camp Skokie Valley.

Camp Skokie Valley chapel.

Organized sports were encouraged by CCC leaders and enjoyed by the enrollees.

A fleet of 40 trucks transported enrollees to the jobsite in the morning and brought them back to camp for lunch and in the evening.

Enrollees found many ways to amuse themselves when not working in the lagoons, including organizing musical performances.

Despite a clause prohibiting racial discrimination in the law that created the CCC, the organization adopted a national policy of racial segregation in its camps. Camp Skokie Valley included two companies of African American enrollees. Members of Co. 605 are pictured here, c. 1939.

Enrollee Wilbur Hansen at Camp Skokie Valley, c. 1935.