[3/11/22] 7-Min Read: Originally created as a collector blog to capture things that warrant documenting and commentary this a companion piece to my blog entry on Kennesaw National Battlefield Park . However, it really never progressed past the first two ‘chapters’ regarding the Mountain Road and Camp Brumby, with a the start of an entry on the History of Kennesaw Georgia, at which point I moved-on to the history of Cobb County and Georgia, instead.
Index of Subjects:
- The “Mountain Road 1864”
- Camp Brumby
- Photos Taken at Camp Brumby
- Specific Ruins Identified to Their Original Purpose
- The History of Kennesaw: Extracts from Wikipedia
The “Mountain Road 1864”
This is the road created by the Confederate States of America (CSA) Army’s Civil Engineers that was used to move cannon, other materials and soldiers up the mountain to the various entrenchments and Cannon Battery at the summit of Kennesaw Mountain. I believe satellite imagery shows where the road traverses the north face of the mountain to the summit, as shown by the gold colored line I’ve overlayed on the satellite image: further investigation is still needed, but the path makes some sense.
What remains a mystery to me is what looks like second road or trail that paralled the 1864 road until it headed more directly up-hill, instead of at a more gentle-grade toward the summit of the mountain, as shown by the orange colored line I’ve overlayed on the satellite image. It parallels the current, upper two thirds of the current hiking trail to the mountain that is also visible in satellite images. In some respects, and based on further visits to the park, it almost appears to be the remains of a single, earthwork trench runnning from the summit to the base on Kennesaw Mountain as part of the CSA defenses.
The photo below was taken where the 1864 road crosses the current paved road created in the 1940’s and is marked with the first of two signs, the second is further up the mountain where it crosses the 1925 dirt road created by the Kennesaw Mountain Association, portions of which are still in use as parts of the hiking trail system.
At below left, the view “down the 1864 Road” and then, below center, “up the 1864 Road” from the hiking path and 1925 dirt road. At below right, is the view looking directly towards Kennesaw Ave which I believe is the path used for the 1864 road as that segment is also clearly visible in satellite images.
Camp Brumby
Camp Brumby was one of 35 Civilian Conservation Core (CCC) Camps established in Georgia that were set-up, performed work and then relocated in what was a total of 127 location in Georgia between 1933 and 1942, employing some 78,000 workers. The buildings erected at “Camp Brumby” in 1938, also know as CCC Company 431 at Georgia Camp NP-4 in Marietta, was in operation from 1938 to early 1942. The buildings erected at Camp Brumby were previously located at and used by CCC Company 3442 at Georgia Camp SP-11, Hard Labor Creek Park in Rutledge, GA., from 1935-1937. They were dismanteled, relocated to Marietta and then re-assembled at the base of Kennesaw Mountain in 1938.
The following comes from the New Georgia Encyclopedia entry entitled, “Civilian Conservation Corps” written by Ren Davis of Atlanta.
Among the numerous New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) is remembered as one of the most popular and effective. Established on March 31, 1933, the corps’s objective was to recruit unemployed young men for forestry, erosion control, flood prevention, and parks development. The U.S. Department of Labor recruited men for six-month enlistments; the U.S. Department of War provided army officers to operate 200-man work camps; and the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture identified projects and supervised the work by “local experienced men” or LEMS employed to train and oversee the mostly unskilled laborers. During the CCC’s nine-year existence, more than 3 million men known as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” worked from 16,000 camps carrying out projects across the nation.
CCC work in Georgia’s national park properties focused on the preservation of natural or historic features. At Chickamauga and Kennesaw Mountain battlefields, preservation included the construction of roads and trails, and restoration of historic fortifications. At the Ocmulgee mounds, outside of Macon, enrollees supported archaeological work and building construction. They carried out road and bridge work at Andersonville National Historic Site, in Macon County, and restored the masonry walls and dikes at Fort Pulaski National Monument, located just outside Savannah. The CCC also worked on numerous other projects around the state, helping to construct the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, building what is now the oldest shelter at Blood Mountain, and clearing the land and building fire towers and roads at Fort Stewart. An all-Black unit developed facilities at the Okefenokee Swamp Wildlife Refuge.
A local history-buff’s one-time, non-commercial Facebook page had an extract of a Ph.D dissertation from 2012 by Mark Barron regarding the CCC Camp NP-4 Company 431 at Kennesaw National Battlefield Park in Marietta, GA that you may still be able to find HERE. And, yes Kennesaw Mountain is located in Marietta, Georgia, not Kennesaw which didn’t get renamed Kennesaw until 1887.
The National Park Service also created a very detailed account of, “The Civilian Conservation Corps at Kennesaw Mountain” I’ve saved as a .pdf file you can open and read by clicking on the image at right or the highlighted title.
Photos Taken at Camp Brumby
My wife joined me for a short walk around the Camp Brumby Loop on 11 March 2022 where I took the previous photos of the “Mountain Road 1864” along with the ones that appear below with my comments based on trying to reconcile photos and layouts of the camp with some of the remaining foundations and other remnants such as small brick structures, the location of small trees in the photos and topographical features.
The Tool House – Sadly, it appears as though the sign for the tool house is not in the right place. It 100′ or so to the west of the poured-concrete Tool House foundation that you can still see inside the Campy Brumby “loop road” from 1939 that’s still in place. I’ve found a hand-drawing of Campy Brumby annotated to show what each of the structures were and done my best to correlate that with the few photos of Campy Brumby I’ve found, but in doing both the Tool House marker is definitely misplaced by about 100′.
At left, the marker placed by the National Park Service (NPS) or a volunteer group. In the middle, a locator photo and the at right the actual foundation about 100′ to the east, across from the Education building.
The Education Building – They’ve got the placement of this sign correct, if only because a stacked-rock-wall entry path is still standing leading to the front door of what was a far-less durable and permanent wood structure at the north side of the Campy Brumby “loop road” and across from the center of Camp Brumby and it’s flag pole, just to the east of the Tool House.
The Barracks – They also got the placement of a sign denoting where Barracks #4 was located inside the Camp Brumby Loop with a representative photo of the 50-man barracks building. I believe all of the buildings at Camp Brumby were previously at the CCC Camp in Blairsville, GA from 1933-1935: the 431st. CCC at Camp Enotah,
The Oil House, Motor Pool & Foundary/Blacksmith Shop – This is something of a mystery to me at this point. When I look at the reference photos and drawings of Camp Brumby there appears to be yet another “standard” small wooden structure on the scale of the Tool House perhaps a 100′ to the east of the Education Building, but several hundred feet to the west of the motor pool and a less substantial structure in the motor pool area. So, I’m not sure if the “Oil House Location” marking sign (photo at left) was something of a mid-point between the two structures in the absence of more historical photos and records, which I must assume exists but have not yet discovered.
This is also part-and-parcel to the northeast corner of Camp Brumby’s lack of historical data on all of the structures that were clearly visible in one of the only overview photos of the camp where the motor pool area is clearly visible and aligns with a rough drawing of the camp I’ve found. What’s marked at the “Forge Location” is the corner of Campy Brumby Loop (photo at center) and an eastward road now part of the Kennesaw Mountain Loop hiking trail that was, at one time, where photos and drawings of the original Camp Brumby place the motor pool buildings and the forge & blacksmith shop buildings is a small brick structure (photo at right) that was likely a very primitive small forge inside the blacksmith shop.
In addition to the motor pool buildings and the forge & blacksmith shop building that aren’t well-marked but clearly denoted on a drawing and photo of Campy Brumby, is a collection of old poured concrete foundations well-off the loop road. I personally believe these are foundation posts for the Motor Pool Repair Shop (photo below) as they are aligned with where the photos and drawings of the original Camp Brumby place such a shop, a building that would have definitely required substantial foundation if it was a raised-wooden structure, which appears to be in the photos.
Bath House & Latrine: Once again, we have a bit of a mystery to me. While there’s no doubt that these are the remaining foundation and plumbing of the Bath House (photo below), but the Latrine is a bit more elusive. The drawings and photos aren’t necessarily in agreement, but the overall-camp photo shows a more logical placement of the latrine, just beyond and downslope of the Bath House.
Unlike the Bath House with it’s poured-concrete foundation and remaining, cast-iron water inlets and drain pipes, the Latrine if it was like most WWII-era latrines may have only had a wooden structure sitting over a “pit latrine” placed well-away from living and dining quarters on a downward sloping hill, basically a fancy out-house for 10 or 12. There is no evidence of a stucture or foundation near the Bath House, but the terrain and slop of the area behind the Bath House looks like it would have been ideal for a latrine. More investigation will be required.
Mess Hall & Related Structures: The sign denoting the location of the Mess Hall (upper left) is not on the Camp Brumby Loop as all of the other markers are; instead, it is on the inner, grass courtyard side of the Campy. And, once again, the placement of the sign is not exactly aligned with the remnants of the concrete foundation (upper right), but to a more central location where a large concrete-block-filled structure is still standing along (lower left) with three cast-iron pipes in parallel loops that come-out of and then re-enter a poured -concrete foundation (lower right) at what would have been the back of the Mess Hall, just in front of where Miss Debbie is standing. I’ll have to see if I can find some CCC building schematics with plumbing and cooking/heating installations depicted, or photos from other CCC camps with like facilities.
Food Storage Building: The Food Storage building was located on the opposite side of the Campy Brumby Loop Road, directly behind the Mess Hall, which makes sense. There was a marker sign, but it has lost its information board in the not too distant past. However, the Food Storage building’s poured-concrete foundation is still there (photo at right).
What’s interesting is, the drawings of Camp Brumby reference a trash can rack behind the Mess Hall that aligns with this brick structure on the other side of Camp Brumby Loop, and I suspect they’re one-in-the-same. Brick structure and stacked-stone seem to be hallmarks of CCC projects designed to “teach” CCC troops how to build things out of whatever is available naturally, hence why they’re the Civil CONSERVATION Core: how to make due with and preserve nature by using what nature provides. It explains why they created a quarry on the east side of Kennesaw Mountain that was the source of most of the crushed-stone used for the access road to Cheatham Hill Park and the 1940’s mountain top access road. So, the brick “trash can” storage rack behind the Mess Hall (photo at left) makes more sense. However, I’m not quite sure what the a primitive brick & metal forg-looking structure (photo at right) is some 50-yards behind the Food Storage building that’s still there. Perhaps this sat under and was used to heat the Water Tank that would have provided and natural water-pressure fed water to the Mess Hall kitchen and Bath House?
The Camp Brumby Headquarters Building – There’s nothing to denote where the HQ building for Camp Brumby was other than my own assumption based on the overview photo that I’ve found. In that photo, there is a small tree growing behind the Headquarters’ Building, sitting in a wide-open field with very few trees — likely due to annual “burns” to control overgrowth and the hunting grounds by the Cherokee Indians who previously lived in a space of land they called “Kennesaw Town” at the base of the mountain — that is now in the same place as the largest, old-growth tree at the former Camp Brumby.
The History of Kennesaw: Extracts from Wikipedia
The town of Kennesaw was originally known as “Big Shanty” from 1830-1887. It got it’s original name when the Western and Atlantic Railroad were being built in the late 1830s and temporary, worker settlements with improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks were built along the route. A long grade up into Cobb County from the Etowah River became known as “the big grade to the shanties,” shortened to “Big Shanty Grade”, and then “Big Shanty” which stuck for 57-years until the Cherokee name for their settlement’s name of “Kennesaw” (derived the Cherokee word gah-nee-sah, meaning cemetery or burial ground) located at the base of what is now known as Big Kennesaw Mountain.
The first human inhabitants of north Georgia were the Mound Builders, who moved into the area about A. D. 900. The largest site of these ancient people was at Etowah in Bartow County, but the presence of numerous small rock mounds around Kennesaw Mountain indicate they may have lived in this area as well. For unexplained reasons the Mound Builders’ civilization eventually ceased to exist. Their descendants, though, became known as the Creek Indians and continued to inhabit north Georgia until about A. D. 1700. The Creeks were gradually pushed south by the Cherokees. The Cherokees lived in small scattered farm communities north of the Chattahoochee River and had villages in what is now Cobb County. One of these, Kennesaw town, was at the base of Kennesaw Mountain.
A History Trip to Cobb County Georgia 
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