Other items about Carbide, other
camps and general correspondence from site-readers |
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Under reconstruction! (obviously…) Remembering |
Carlton Gandee Memorial Fund Blue
Creek history/rail Here is a link to another West
Virginia camp (Brookside) built by Union Carbide and more lately
rehabilitated by the National Park Service, plus volunteers. Our friend Angela
Allison volunteered there in the Summer of 2014, and we shared some thoughts,
ideas and camp memories End of Another Era - Carbide's Main Office Building 82 -- March
2009
Dave Gardner's trip to The Creek, August, 2006 -- Pictures! Remembering Carlton Gandee -- March, 2006 End of an Era -- The UCC Tech Center water tank comes down -- July 2005 Karin Vingle Fuller Gazette-Mail article - Camps Make Memories -- April 17, 2005 Dave Gardner Remembers -- 2004 Year 2002 Camps Appreciation -- Bob Lilley Bob Johnson Remembers -- 2002 Marina Hendricks Gazette-Mail article -- March, 2002 Karin Vingle Gazette-Mail column -- May, 2001 "The Carbider" article-- September, 2000 Letter from Scott Mease to the Charleston Gazette-Mail -- 1984 |
For many years, the Union Carbide
Corporation in South Charleston, West Virginia, operated summer camps for
children of employees. Camp Cliffside, near the Coal River, and Camps Camelot
and Carlisle in the forest near Blue Creek offered a wide variety of sports,
crafts, learning and fun activities. Each summer, hundreds of "Carbide
kids" spent two weeks at camp during their pre-teen and teenage
years. |
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I remember my own 1950s
experiences as a camper, junior counselor, and counselor in training as
significant times of life as I learned to cope with nature and with being away
from home for a while, to interact with others both younger and older, to
generally grow a bit, and perhaps to learn how to make fewer dumb choices
later in life. |
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When I heard that Dow Chemical Company was about to acquire Union Carbide, I was reminded that
somewhere at Carbide there must be files and materials which were stored when
the camps ceased operations. And those campers must now be living throughout
the nation and the world. It is time to retrieve these materials from company
and campers alike. |
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I started this site in late 2000,
in hopes that there are others who feel a little wistful that these camps are
no longer operating, and that photos, awards, records
and memorabilia deserve to be preserved. I have been moved and delighted by
the response. |
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If you or anyone you know has
access to any "scrapbook" information on the Carbide camps, I would
appreciate receiving scanned files, faxes or just information on who has
what. I bet others would agree that together we can expand this page to be
informative, fun, and yes, maybe a bit sentimental for all of us. Visit the site, view and sign the guestbook, and, by all means, get in touch -- with me and with your other camps alumni! This can be fun! |
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Page prepared by Robert Lilley, Santa Barbara, CA -- Visit
Lilley Health Enterprises |
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Contact me by e-mail at "mail (AT)
carbidecamps.net" -- fax 805-967-8471 -- telephone 805-967-9394 |