A Northern Indiana Camp Committee was appointed, to find a site, and secure finances. I was on the committee as a chairman. Anna Clark was the State Staffmember, as Director of Christian Education. We met in Warsaw on wintery day and first looked at a small acreage on a little lake west of town. It was inadequate. We then drove to the 50 acres, fronting on Kuhn and Rattlesnake Lakes, as some people called it. We looked at the big house and walked over the rolling fields, with the lake frontage on Kuhn, and the woods overlooking Big Barbee Lake as well. We could see the great possibilities for development. The purchase was made in February, 1952 -- it seems it was worth $30,000 for the 50 acres. Plans were made for the first opening of the camp for the first high school conferences.
A word about rattlesnakes. Rumors were confirmed by "natives' not only were they in the swamp north of the road, but in the swamp between our land and the low area to the east (it is now filled with houses). The Spring that we opened our camp, a drive through the swamp netted 23 rattlers. Being alarmed, I checked with the Natural Resources in Indianapolis. "Yes, there were rattlers there, but they were swamp, and not so poisonous." Nonetheless, that first year all counselors carried snake bite kits, and were instructed to immediately open any bite that a youth might get. Of course, there were none. A few years later, in the summer, when the snakes would seek higher ground, a boy stuck his finger out in front of one, near the woods. He spent three days in the Warsaw Hospital!
"When I was on the Barbee committee, I was minister of what was then Indiana Avenue and is now Southside Christian Church in South Bend. My recollection is that the committee was referred to the Barbee site by Carroll Odell who was then minister of the Christian Church in Warsaw. When we went to the site to look it over, there were only two buildings there--the large brick house and a round wooden structure not far from it. We could see that the site had possibilities, however and decided to recommend that the region purchase it--which, of course, they did. We also had to have someone dredge the lake bottom at the edge of the property so that campers would be able to swim. Even then, during the first year when swimmers went out as far as they were allowed the water still only came up to their knees! It was decided to set up a place for vesper services down on the "point" near where the cabins now are. I remember when I directed one of the first weeks of camp, I had to decide when the weather looked threatening whether we could risk going down to the site for vespers!
Campers were strictly forbidden to go into the tall grass area which was between the dining hall and the lake because it was said there were poisonous "critters" in there. We found out there was something to that when one year, Samuel Maqbuhl Masih, an Indian Christian who was on the faculty for a week of camp killed a swamp rattlesnake in the area!
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Originally, the camp was part of the hunting and fishing grounds of the Pottawatomie and Miami Indian tribes, and the region was later settled by Daniel Kuhn. The first youth camp was held in the summer of 1952. Once used exclusively for youth camps, the grounds are now open year round for retreats and Recreational Vehicles. The purpose of the camp is to promote Christian education in an outdoor setting, reinforcing the faith statement we make when we claim God as Creator and Savior.
The facilities at Bethany Park were rapidly deteriorating, and the common mind developing favored three camps for Indiana -- North, Central and South. This dream was rapidly promoted when the old wooden hotel burned to the ground on wintery night. (For some time, when ministers would privately meet with each other, they would ask, "Say, where were you on a certain night???) Anyway, it was settled, and dreams began to be objectives for action.
Double deck bunks filled the house for the girls. In the yard was the "round house", screened in, and used as the study for the owner, who was an editor or writer for a Chicago newspaper. A large chicken house was thoroughly cleaned, with the inside sealed with large pieces of cardboard for the boy's bunk house. The block garage, just big enough to house a Model T, was made into the boy's restroom and shower. (The water was cold, and I mean COLD!) The dining room, with kitchen, walk-in refrigerator and storage room was hastily built. It was all very crude, but the beginnings were there for a wonderful campground to come. The fields were mowed. Planks on blocks of wood became the vesper site in the woods, overlooking the two lakes.
A beach was needed for swimming. Our frontage was on Kuhn Lake, east of the Vesper Point in the woods. John Whiteneck and I got into a rowboat, and with a fishing pole explored the lake bottom. It was mostly muck, but we did find one area that seemed to be sand. Much fill, dirt, sand or gravel was needed. About four feet of fill was placed at the base of the woods from the gravel pit which we opened north of the area. The fill was tapered down to two feet at the water's edge. Sand was placed in the water to make a beach, and a deck and diving board was built. One winter we placed about six inches of sand on the ice and when the ice melted, the sand bottom sank into place!!
The two cabins by the woods were the first to be built, at a cost of $4,000 each. Men, women and youth from many churches in northern Indiana donated labor and materials for the development of Barbee Christian Camp. The evergreen trees in the valley between the woods and the dining hall were set out by youth.
Letter from Jim Ellerbrook,
That first season of camp, the girls were quartered in the brick house and the boys were in the "round wooden structure." It doesn't seem now as though there would have been enough room, but, as I recall, there wasn't any problem. I don't know what we male campers did for sanitary facilities, but apparently we got along okay in that respect also.
