When off to Case meant off to camp

Pencil poised above a drawing board, a T-square positioned for a line, a shirtless young man in hiking shoes (and funky socks) partakes in a Case academic tradition in 1953. He’s likely mapping a portion of Mohican State Forest, perhaps terrain he and his classmates tromped that very day.

For much of Case’s first century, the curriculum included engineering lessons in the great outdoors, a mandatory surveying class known as Camp Case. The location changed across the decades but for 20 consecutive years — from 1937 to 1957 — Camp Case unfolded at Mohican State Forest, near Loudonville, about 85 miles south of campus.

For two weeks before the start of the school year, more than 100 young men converged in the woods to learn how to use transits and levels, shoot elevation lines and plot topography. Working in teams, they traversed hills and streams and created a vast survey map of the parklands. As the photo indicates, camp conditions were rustic. Students slept in tents and barracks. They started the day with calisthenics (before breakfast) and studied in open-air pavilions, where they might peel off T-shirts in the August heat. There were no phones at Camp Case, and students could not bring cars.

Despite the hardships, a memorable camaraderie emerged. Campers enjoyed sports contests and bonfires and trips to town for ice cream. Many alumni came to look back fondly on their camp days as part of the quintessential Case experience.

“After the early awkwardness of camp life disappeared, every squad immediately became absorbed (and we do mean absorbed) in their surveying projects,” The Differential reported in 1940. “The call to break camp brought with it to every individual the realization that he would ever remember this as the glorious adventure of his college life.”

Taps sounded on Camp Case in 1957, when surveying ceased to be a universal graduation requirement for engineering majors. To comment, please email casealum@casealum.org.