These days, when the president wants to let his hair down, a short helicopter ride to Camp David in the Maryland Mountains provides some much-needed solitude.
Every chief executive officer since Franklin D. Roosevelt has stayed there. Joe Biden especially likes this place. But not everyone liked it. “It was interesting for about 30 minutes,” Donald Trump said. Bess Truman found it boring. Each on their own.
But a presidential vacation a century ago caused a “tremendous situation.” literally.
This is the story of the short-lived Camp Hoover.
President Herbert Hoover is remembered for the unusual misfortune of starting the Great Depression on his watch, which looks like a terrible thing to do on a presidential resume. However, when he became president in 1929, he was extremely popular.
Hoover, the first president, was born and raised west of the Mississippi River and spent years living in a mining camp as an engineer. For this most staid of presidents, the outdoors was appealing.
As soon as Hoover moved into the White House, he found the perfect place to escape. It was an ideal getaway located at the headwaters of the Rapidan River in Double Top Mountain, Virginia. Nearby mills on the He Prong River and Laurel He Prong River were ideal for fishing. (Although Hoover was an avid fisherman, he was also the type of person who fished in a coat and tie.)
The Virginians provided the land free of charge. But Hoover didn't hear of it. He claimed to personally pay the current rate of $5 per acre for the 164 acres of undisturbed land, plus an additional $22,719 in materials costs. The Marines provided free labor, calling the construction project a “military exercise.” They constructed 13 buildings, including a cabin, two dining halls, a lodge, a meeting hall, and the Hoover mansion, called the Brown House (to distinguish it from the White House). There are hiking trails, a mini-golf course, and trout pools where the fish are so docile they were said to “slowly drift out to watch us.”
To save money, Hoover retired the presidential yacht Mayflower and relocated its mess crew and utensils to the camp. The official name was Rapidan Camp, but everyone called it Camp Hoover.
It was very rustic, and the mail was delivered by falling out of a plane.
But that didn't stop some of the biggest names of the day from visiting, including Thomas Edison, Edsel Ford, Governor Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Winston Churchill, and then-British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald. In a move that foreshadowed Camp David's later role as a site of delicate diplomatic negotiations, Hoover canceled Britain's World War I debt in exchange for the United States purchasing Bermuda, Trinidad, and British Honduras. I suggested that. (McDonald's response: “Thank you, but no thanks.”)
In August 1929, Hoover's doctor met a mountain boy who was hiking in the nearby woods. they started a conversation. Doctors were shocked to learn that neither the child nor his eight siblings had ever attended school before, as there were no schools nearby. A few days later, the boy and some of his friends entered Hoover camp on horseback and presented the president with a live possum as his birthday present. (Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who visited with her husband Charles, was amused to learn that her children had never heard of the world-famous aviator.) Hoover was impressed. , privately funded a small school for local poor children.
Camp Hoover's glory days didn't last long. After losing re-election in 1932, Hoover ceded the camp to the government. Franklin Roosevelt visited in 1933, but he didn't like it. The paths were not wheelchair accessible and the water was too cold for swimming.
The Boy Scouts used this location from 1946 until the early 1960s. By that time, much of the cabin had rotted away.
Still, the VIPs kept coming. Jimmy Carter was the first president to visit since Roosevelt. When Vice President Walter Mondale was trapped in a snowstorm, the Secret Service needed a chainsaw to rescue him. Vice President Al Gore also stopped by during his tenure.
The National Park Service restored the remaining three cabins (including the Brown House) in 2004 and renamed them Rapidan Camp. You can visit today by hiking on foot or by van from the nearby visitor center.
They're reliving a forgotten piece of presidential history in the same environment Herbert and Lou Hoover enjoyed nearly 100 years ago.
J. Mark Powell is a novelist, former television journalist, and hardcore history buff. Is there a historical mystery that needs to be solved? Is a forgotten moment worth remembering? Send it to HolyCow@insidesources.com.
