Shared by Bobbie Todd, as Guest Blogger.

Since our last blog on The Mysteries of Group Camp 7 back in 2016, the team at Pocahontas State Park has found a lot more information on the site and its uses.

Group Camp 7 was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and was used until the 1970s by the Girl Scouts, YWCA, and local church groups. Some of these local church groups offered summer camps for young Black Virginians during the Jim Crow era.

Pocahontas State Park will host a second webinar on Saturday, March 27, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. via Zoom to share more about what we have discovered, to include the summer camps that allowed Black youth to recreate, the founders of these camps, and more.

If you have information or would like to learn about this part of the park’s history, please plan to attend. And, if you previously attended (or know someone who attended) one of the camps hosted at Group Camp 7 (the most well known of which is Camp Carey), please let us know!

We are also seeking oral history accounts as well as photos taken at the camp site as we work to recover and preserve the history about Pocahontas State Park. If you are interested in sharing this information, please contact Bobbie Todd at bobbie.todd@dcr.virginia.gov.