The idea of what became Eastern Gas and Fuel Recreation Camps was born out of a conversation between a social worker and a county agent on a Montgomery, West Virginia, street corner in the depression year 1933. The social worker was Florence Haughton, who was employed by Koppers Coal Company at the time. The two expressed the wish that the children of mine workers might have the same mind and body building recreation that was offered to other children. The social worker took the thought to Mr. Thomas E. Lightfoot, an official of the coal mining organization. Within two years Mr. Lightfoot had moved the thought to reality. Of course, Koppers Coal Company did not own a camp site and therefore it was necessary to arrange to rent a camp. The first camp site rented was the Fayette County 4-H Camp; the first group of children attended camp in 1935.  The 1935 experiment proved successful.  Rental of camps expanded each year, and continued until 1941 when a new permanent camp site was purchased and construction was completed.

The permanent camp is known as Camp Thomas E. Lightfoot, named in honor of its founder. It is located along the Greenbrier River near Hinton, West Virginia. The land consisting of 83 acres was purchased from the Ferrell family.

A word about sound files:	Click here if you have not read our blurb about sound files used in this section of the Camp Thomas E Lightfoot web pages.

If a sound control appears below, you may push the "play" button to hear David Ballard tell the story of the sale by the Ferrell family of the land for Camp to Koppers Coal Company.

If no sound control appears above the line, click Ballard's image to link to the "wav" file containing the story as told in October 2001 >>>
After hearing Ballard's story, click here if you wish to read more about the Ferrell Family pioneer history.

Facilities at Camp Lightfoot as of the early 1950’s consisted of an administration building, eleven cottages for campers, cooks cottage, modern infirmary, directors cottage, storage building, farm building, sports equipment storage building, rifle range and waterfront shelter. Included in the main building were the kitchen and dining hall with the camp office, craft shop, furnace and shower rooms at basement level.  Farm operations were a part of the camp program. This was felt necessary in order that a good supply of fresh vegetables would be on hand for the children.

The 1955 camp program included swimming, boating, canoeing, Junior and Senior life-saving courses, fishing, riflery, archery, crafts, sports, campcraft, nature study, Indian lore, Indian crafts, scouting, human relations, story telling and camp newspaper. Special programs and activities included Vesper services, Sunday School, Candlelight service, water carnival, track meet, patriotic programs, treasure hunt and council circle.

A word about sound files	Hoping to enhance our visitors' enjoyment of this site, we have placed a few snippets of sound here and there. 1) Different browsers handle these differently, so if you encounter problems, please let us know via email to mailbox@CampLightfoot.org, so we can send the JC Boss to attempt repairs. 2) Download times vary depending partly on your connection to the internet, and the first time you hear a given audio file, the sound may be inconsistent and intermittent (jerky). Future playbacks should be smoother, unless you wait a long time between visits, or your browser is set to discard temporary web files after just a short period. 3) Our setup tries to make a control appear on your screen, so you can pause, rewind, stop or fastforward through the audio track, but different browsers handle this different ways. 4) Please tell us which sounds you enjoy.