By Acadia Roher, student, Master's of Public History at UA at Little Rock

Visited on: 8/14/2019

On a shady Lake Catherine peninsula just beyond Cabin 5, rock pillars and a masonry foundation stand silently in the woods. These aren’t exactly ruin－they’re more of an unfinished construction site. After Pearl Harbor signaled the beginning of United States involvement in World War II, the Civilian Conservation Corps was quickly dissolved and many of the workers enlisted or were drafted into the military. These men were already accustomed to mess hall chow, barracks inspections, and following the orders of Army personnel who ran the CCC camps. Some CCC projects were left unfinished. Some, like the rock foundation in the woods by the lake, are unfinished to this day.

Another mysterious rock wall looms next to the swimming beach, marking the former location of a CCC lodge. The building burned in 1948, and the ruins are now a picnic area overlooking the lake. Visitors will notice differences in the rockwork from one area to another. Stones laid by the CCC were done in relief, meaning that the mortar is set back from the surface of the wall so that the rocks stand out. Later on, German prisoners of war added new walls, stairs, and other rock structures using a flatter style. “P.W.” is etched into two walls made by prisoners in the 1940s.

Much of the work completed by CCC Company 3777 is still actively used in the park today. A Rustic style cabin near the swimming beach is now the Lake Catherine Nature Cabin, which is used for educational programs. The inside walls are lined with interpretive panels and fish tanks with turtles and other lake denizens. The bathhouse, a small bridge, the nature cabin, and cabins 1 through 3 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Each of the cabins on the peninsula has a screened-in back porch facing the lake, as well as a small dock. A power plant burning natural gas hums across the lake, but Entergy has agreed to shut it down by 2027 so future visitors will be able to enjoy an experience more similar to that of the CCC workers when they arrived to build the state park.