The stone buildings Leeds
Company 585, October 1933 to 1942, and four buildings that lasted
The Leeds CCC camp, and why it is the last one standing
The Civilian Conservation Corps built its camps to be temporary, and almost all of them were frame and are gone. At Leeds the administrative core went up in coursed rubble masonry faced with local red orange sandstone, and four of those buildings are still there on Mulberry Lane. It is free to visit, and the road the crews cut up the mountain is still the way up.
By Scott Buehler, Southern Utah local
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The Leeds CCC camp is the only Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Utah with its buildings still standing. Four small stone buildings, the administrative core of a camp that ran from 1933 to 1942, survive on Mulberry Lane because they were built in coursed sandstone while the rest of the camp was frame and came down before 1950. It is free, it is outdoors, and it takes about half an hour. Pair it with Oak Grove Road, about eight and a half miles up the mountain on a road the same crews cut, and a half hour of curiosity becomes a genuine day.
What is standing
Four stone buildings, and why they outlasted the rest
Between 1933 and 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps ran camps in every state, and they were built to be temporary. Frame barracks, frame mess halls, frame everything, put up fast and taken down faster once the work was done and the war took the men. Almost none of it survived, and most of the Leeds camp's frame buildings were gone before 1950.
What is still on Mulberry Lane is the part of the camp that ran it rather than the part that housed it, and it survived because it was built in stone. Four small buildings of coursed rubble masonry and concrete, faced in local red orange sandstone, sitting into the ground around them. The Washington County Historical Society records this as the only CCC camp in Utah with buildings still standing, and the National Register nomination calls it perhaps the best remaining example of a CCC camp in the state.
Each of the four had a job. The infirmary is the smallest, and a room about the size of a modest bedroom is a fair measure of what medical care for two hundred young men in 1930s southern Utah looked like. The men themselves lived in frame barracks laid out to the west, past where I-15 now runs, alongside a mess hall, a library and showers, and none of that is there. Standing in the administrative core with the living quarters gone is an odd thing to be left with, and it is a large part of what makes the site read the way it does.
The four that stand, and what is gone
Why the camp was here
Flood control, water, and a road up the mountain
Southern Utah in the 1930s was arid, flood prone and short of everything, and the conservation work the CCC existed to do mattered here more than in most places it went. Flood control and water resource development were the priorities, in a valley whose own town had been founded in 1867 by families driven out of nearby Harrisburg by exactly that problem.
The projects the Leeds crews left behind are still in use. They cut the road to Oak Grove, about eight and a half steep miles up beside Leeds Creek to the southern boundary of the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness, and built the campground at the top of it, which opened with a tennis court, a wading pool and a playground. They built a swimming pool for the town, too. The Oak Grove Road page covers the drive and the campground as they are now.
That is the thing worth going for. Plenty of New Deal sites let you look at a plaque. Very few let you stand in the office where the work was organised and then drive the road the same men cut, ninety years later, still the only way up that face of the mountain.
Stand in the office, then drive the road. Ninety years apart, and a mountain between them.
The dedication fell on Armistice Day. Company 585 opened the camp in October 1933, and a large crowd came for the dedication on 11 November 1933, fifteen years after one war and eight before the next, for a camp full of young men doing national service. Most of the men who lived here would be in uniform within a decade, which is a large part of why the camp closed in 1942.
Going there
Free, unstaffed, and half an hour well spent
The site is on Mulberry Lane inside the town, and the buildings sit just inside the stone monuments at the entrance. There is no admission, no ticket desk and nobody to show you round, which means the reading is up to you and the interpretive signs on site are what you get.
It also means there is no water, no toilet and no shade, so treat it as a stop rather than a destination on a hot day. The best pairing is with Oak Grove Road, about eight and a half miles and a lifetime away up the mountain, which turns half an hour of curiosity into a day that actually makes sense.
One request that applies to every unstaffed historic site and applies here in particular, because the stone is soft: look, photograph, and keep off the walls and the low stone terraces. Coursed rubble masonry ninety years old with no maintenance budget behind it does not need help coming apart, and the terraces are part of what the National Register nomination points to as making the site significant.
Visiting
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The camp, answered
It is the only one with buildings still standing, according to the Washington County Historical Society, and the National Register nomination describes it as perhaps the best remaining example of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the state. The reason is construction: CCC camps were built as temporary frame structures almost everywhere, and most of Leeds' frame buildings were gone before 1950. The four that survive were built in stone.
Four, all administrative, on about two and a third acres. The infirmary at roughly 192 square feet, the dispensary and supply building at about 480, the blacksmith shop at around 360, and the commander's headquarters at about 496. All are coursed rubble masonry and concrete faced in local red orange sandstone. The barracks, mess hall, library and showers were frame, stood to the west, past where I-15 now runs, and are gone.
Company 585 opened it in October 1933, a large crowd attended the dedication on 11 November 1933, and it closed in 1942. About two hundred young men from across the country were housed there. The camp is recorded under more than one designation, appearing as F-14 and SCS-7 in the federal records and as archaeological site 42WS2394 in the state record.
Work that is still in use. They cut the road to Oak Grove, about eight and a half steep miles up beside Leeds Creek to the southern boundary of the Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness, and built the campground at the top of it, which opened with a tennis court, a wading pool and a playground. They also built a swimming pool for the town. In an arid, flood prone corner of the state, flood control and water resource development were the programme's local priorities.
Yes. The Leeds CCC Camp Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 4 March 1993 under reference number 93000062. The site is on Mulberry Lane in Leeds and is cared for locally. Listing on the register is a recognition and a planning consideration rather than a protection order, which is worth knowing about any designated site.
Yes, free of charge, and the buildings sit just inside the monuments at the entrance on Mulberry Lane. It is an outdoor visit rather than a staffed museum, so there is nobody to show you round and the interpretive material on site is what you get. Allow about half an hour. There is no water, no toilet and no shade, so treat it as a stop rather than a destination in summer.
Because the conservation work the programme existed to do was badly needed here. Southern Utah in the 1930s was arid and flood prone, and flood control and water resource development were the local priorities. Leeds itself had been founded in 1867 by families who moved up from Harrisburg, where farmland and water were short, and water work mattered to the valley from the start.
Directly. The crews housed at the Mulberry Lane camp built the road up to Oak Grove and the campground at the top of it. Ninety years later Forest Road 032 is still the way up the south face of the Pine Valley Mountains and the campground is still where you park to walk Oak Grove Trail 31030. Pairing the two makes a much better day than either on its own, because you can stand in the office and then drive the project.
Please do not. Coursed rubble masonry ninety years old, on an unstaffed site with no maintenance budget behind it, does not need the help. Look, photograph and read the interpretive material, and keep off the walls and the stone terraces. The terraces in particular are part of what the National Register nomination identifies as making the site significant, and they are exactly the sort of feature that goes one stone at a time.
Two hundred young men, one road, and ninety years
The camp on Mulberry Lane built the way up the mountain, and both are still here. If a town with this much record in it has you thinking about an address rather than an afternoon, the mover page covers the water shares, the septic and the flood zone questions this corridor actually turns on.
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