My World Tuesday: Camp Columbia State Park

Sleepy Morris, Connecticut, was once a vacation hot spot, home, as it is, to Bantam Lake. Back in the day it also boasted an outpost of Columbia University's school of engineering. In 1885 the college's Engineering School of Plane Surveying brought its 46 students to Morris for classes during the summer.


The program would grow over the next century. Along the way, the site would become a military training facility for Columbia students in the engineering school who would fight in the Great War. They received their training there with the help of a Captain Ralph Williams of the Canadian Light Infantry.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the university, he had a miniature football field built on the site. Local lore has it that the New York Giants also used the football field for practice.

The sun set on the engineering program in Morris in the 1980s, and the State of Connecticut did what it had to do to reclaim the land as a state park and as a state forest. A few university buildings like the tower below and many fences still stand. Otherwise, Mother Nature has moved back in.


It's a quiet place. It's beautiful. Watching the moon rise there was a special treat. I swear I could have touched it.

My World Tuesday