By Sue Ann Jones
Editor’s note: This is the time of year when many people think of donating to favorite charities. In upcoming editions of the Times, we plan to feature local charities that serve the residents of Ozark County and the extended area.
To retired teacher Robin Mustion and many people like her, Hammond Mill Camp is more than a collection of rustic cabins where youngsters spend time in the summer having fun and getting closer to nature. It's an Ozarks treasure, a 70-year-old haven where generations of children and also adults have created memories and nurtured relationships that last a lifetime.
And now, after 2020’s covid-19 pandemic canceled almost all of the income-generating camps, family reunions, weddings and other gatherings there, the beloved old hideaway in the woods is in need of financial help.
The camp, on what is now CC Highway southeast of Dora, was created in 1937 to house men in the Civilian Conservation Corps as they worked on projects in this area. Hammond Mill Camp was named for a stave mill that had operated on the site, according to a series of articles about the camp written by Abby Hess and published in the West Plains Daily Quill in 2017. The original camp had only a long barracks where the men slept, a mess hall and a water tower. Only the water tower remains today.
The CCC program was introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt as a way to put Depression-impacted Americans to work. Among other projects, the CCC workers living at Hammond Mill Camp built a road to Siloam Springs, created the nearby Noblett Lake park and installed a phone line from West Plains to Willow Springs.
The CCC ended in 1942, shortly after the U.S. entered World War II, and the camp stood empty until the Rev. Neal Jantz moved with his family from Montana to West Plains in 1947.
Jantz soon discovered the abandoned facility and realized it could be adapted to serve as a Bible camp for youngsters and also as a site where family reunions, weddings and other gatherings could be held amid the beauty of the unspoiled natural area bordering the North Fork of the White River within the Mark Twain National Forest.
1948: The first Bible camp
Jantz organized the first Bible camp there in 1948 and struggled to overcome multiple challenges through the years to fulfill his vision. At first, his agreement with the U.S. Forest Service was a year-to-year lease, so it was hard to schedule camps for the next year. In 1953, Jantz finally negotiated a 20-year lease on the property. The original lease was for 20 acres, Robin Mustion said. Now the governing board for Hammond Mill Camp Inc. leases 10 acres in the national forest, she said.
Jantz also persuaded area businesses and community leaders to donate funds and materials, and he recruited volunteers to help tear down the old barracks and mess hall and reuse a lot of the materials to build the 12 cabins where generations of campers, young and old, would sleep under the towering timber for years to come. One of the old photos shared on the Hammond Mill Camp’s Facebook page shows two women pulling nails from lumber reclaimed from one of the demolished original structures.
70 years of family reunions
Robin Mustion's father, Arnold Caplinger, met with Jantz early on and made a deal that his family, which included 10 siblings, would be allowed to use the camp every first week of July for an annual reunion. During their time at the camp, the family would do some work on camp upkeep and also pay a usage fee, as all camps and groups do.
Robin's family held the first Caplinger-Coldwell reunion at Hammond Mill Camp in 1950. "This would have been the 70th year for it," she said sadly, adding that the covid-19 pandemic kept the camp closed until September this year.
Originally, Robin's family gathered for only a long weekend. In recent years, they've filled the camp for the whole week, with some families and relatives coming and going. The family has hired the same cooks to provide meals in the mess hall for 25 years, she said. The attendees spread out among the cabins by family groups. "The most people we had on one day last year was 120," she said. "This was the first time we've ever had to cancel."
In her life, Robin, 65, has missed only two of those family reunions. Once in 1977, when her father was very ill with cancer, and again in 1982, when she and her husband, Rich, lived in Kansas City and she was due to deliver their baby son.
Robin remembers being a young child when the family reunion was focused on the grown-ups, and the children were simply told to “go play.” Then off the kids would go to find adventures or make up their own games. “Seeing who could drink the most water was one game,” she said, laughing. “Or telling ghost stories in the cabins.”
Now the camp has swings, a volleyball court, a field for sports, tetherball, a horseshoes pit, an outdoor pavilion and other kid-friendly places where youngsters can play. But back then, she said, there was nothing but a camp that had been carved out of the forest where children’s imaginations could run wild. “We had a blast,” she said.
To Robin, one of Hammond Mill Camp’s most distinctive attractions is that “it’s still one place where you can take kids and just let them be free. My nephews and nieces still run wild just like their parents and I did when we were their age,” she said. “There aren’t many places where you can do that in this world today. You can’t tell kids to just ‘go play’ and feel they’ll be safe.”
As board president, she’s also eager to spread the word that the camp can be rented for a wide variety of other events and gatherings, whether it’s a large group that uses all 12 cabins as well as the mess hall, chapel and pavilion, or a one-day meeting in the mess hall or a wedding in the pavilion with the bridal party using the cabins as dressing rooms.
'I owe DOW Camp . . . a debt of gratitude'
While Robin’s connection to the camp has developed over her 65 years of family reunions, she’s quick to say that thousands of kids (now adults) share her feelings for Hammond Mill Camp because they have memories of enjoying it not as a reunion site but as a traditional-style camp.
Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-Hers and many, many Bible camps have been held there during the summers since Jantz held that first Bible camp in 1947. Different groups have come and gone through the years, but the Bible camps have been a summertime constant – until this year.
One of the most beloved groups to use the camp each year – until it had to be canceled this year – is the DOW Camp, which brings to Hammond Mill Camp children from Douglas, Ozark and Wright counties who live in foster or low-income families or other challenging situations. At DOW Camp, they are gifted with a fun-filled week of carefree laughter, crafts, songs, great food and swimming in the nearby river.
One of those former DOW campers, David Pearson, shared his thoughts about the experience in a story published in the Times in 2014.
Pearson, a former camper who later became a counselor, said, “Every day was full of new and fun group activities. Early mornings we gathered around the flagpole to honor our great country and sing everyone’s favorite camp songs. Then we all lined up and headed into the mess hall for the meal together. Most days we would break into groups for age-appropriate play or some other activity, arts and crafts, or an educational lesson.
“One highlight of the week was that every cabin put on a skit for the entire camp,” Pearson wrote. “Not to brag, but I was known for putting on some of the best skits in my era. My cabin was three-time champs, to be exact!”
Pearson, who was 34 when the story was published, went on to say how much all those summers at camp meant to him during his childhood and teen years. “I simply cannot adequately describe my experiences at DOW camp and what they meant to me and those I shared them with. I owe DOW Camp, and all the great people who made it possible all those years, a debt of gratitude,” he wrote.
“My story is only one of the thousands that could be shared by DOW campers. . . . You gave me a week to be a kid, a week to learn, a week to forget and a lifetime to be loved.”
Other former campers express similar feelings whenever Robin posts photos or stories on the Hammond Mill Camp Inc. Facebook page. “They say, ‘Oh, I have such wonderful memories of going to Bible camp there, or to Scout camp,’” she said.
This year, however, DOW Camp, and all the other summer camps, were canceled due to covid-19 concerns.
A reopening that came too late
to help with budget challenges
After missing the entire summer season, the camp did reopen for the Ozark Area Community Congress, which gathered there on the first weekend in September, although attendance was down, Robin said. The Puckett family gathered on Labor Day for its annual reunion, and another family held its annual reunion in the camp’s big mess hall on Thanksgiving.
But the reopening came too late to make up for the loss of most of the year’s expected income. Robin, who now serves as president of the governing board of Hammond Mill Camp, Inc., wants DOW Camp – and all the other gatherings there – to resume and continue for many generations to come. But in an average year, the camp needs $50,000 to pay its bills, including its leasing fees to the Forest Service, and keep the facility maintained.
It’s hard to pay those bills when almost all of the camp’s income disappears, as it did during this pandemic-plagued year. So the camp’s board has asked for help from its neighbors, the residents of the communities and counties surrounding this tucked-away Ozarks treasure.
“Until September, our only income was from donations and a garage sale with Genesis Church in West Plains, which brought in about $4,000,” Robin said.
Two local organizations that have responded in a big way to Hammond Mill Camp’s appeal were Gainesville-based Century Bank of the Ozarks, which gave the camp $5,000, and the Gainesville Land and Community Investment Board, which donated $500.
“That bank,” Robin said. “I honestly don't know what this community would do without Century Bank. I've lived in many communities, and I’ve never seen anything like the way they support their community.”
Hammond Mill Camp manager Zohn Engelhart, who lives at the camp in the caretaker’s house with his wife, Shanda, and their sons, Joshua, 4, and Kaleb, 5, joined Robin in expressing thanks for the community’s support. Not only for financial assistance but also for turning out for the camp’s annual workdays when area residents are invited to help with clean-up and maintenance work.
Like so many others, Engelhart is a former camper. “I loved it as a kid, but I didn’t realize the depth of the impact this camp has. People all over the country have stories of how their lives have been touched by their time at Hammond Mill Camp,” Zohn said.
“I just want to say thank you,” he continued. “To the communities around us, but also in Howell and Douglas counties. They stepped up. I just want to say thanks for taking care of us through this year of covid 19. They didn’t have to. They chose to. And that’s a big deal.”
To make a tax-deductible donation to Hammond Mill Camp, Inc., mail checks to Hammond Mill Camp, 139 Hammond Mill Drive, Pottersville, MO 65790. Gifts may also be made through the camp’s Facebook page or through its Paypal account: paypal.me/hmcamp65790. For information about renting all or part of Hammond Mill Camp, contact Zohn or Shanda Engelhart at hmcamp139@gmail.com or 417-256-2025.
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Hammond Mill Camp, beloved by many, takes financial hit during covid closures - Ozark County Times
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