| Blog Post Published on: | 26th October 2022 |
| Title: | How We Came To Be: A Brief Look at the Beginnings of Circle Pines |
| Lead Author: | John F. Glass |
| Type of Blog Post: | cpc_history |
How We Came To Be: A Brief Look at the Beginnings of Circle Pines
by John F. Glass
July 1998
Circle Pines Center was founded in 1938 to continue the cooperative education/recreation summer schools of the Central States Cooperative League, held since 1931. In 1936 and 1937 these schools were led by Dr. David Sonquist at the Ashland Folk School, established in 1882 in the vicinity of Grand Rapids. The summer schools were a meeting place for people concerned with economic reform, peace education, and the cooperative movement.
The influence of the Danish Folk School movement on the formation and development of Circle Pines is unmistakable. Spearheaded by Chester (Batt) Grahm, who served as resident director of Ashland from 1928 until it closed in 1938, Ashland had an indelible impact on the values, culture, and activities of Circle Pines, which are still evident today, such as the emphasis on cooperative living and work, folk dancing, and music, to the traditional singing of De Skal Leve, when campers leave.
Chester Graham and his wife Margaret moved the folk school toward a more political stance, making connections with farmer and industrial unions and organizing a consumer co-op federation. While Graham was at Ashland, Walter Reuther and his brothers, as well as Lynn Rohrbough, nationally known authority on recreation and folk songs, and Myles Horton, who established the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, came to participate in courses that he taught.
When Ashland’s building was condemned by the fire marshal early in 1938, the school closed but the summer institutes continued under the sponsorship of the Central States Cooperative League. Circle Pines Center was born June 26, 1938 at the newly built WPA government camp Chief Noonday, at Yankee Springs in Barry County. Chief Noonday, built at a cost of $105,000, had 28 cabins and a large multi-purpose building with meeting space and kitchen. The rent was $576 for the year! The arrangements were made by Dave Sonquist, A.W. “Pop” Warriner, Executive Director of the Central States Cooperative League, Bruce Siddell, an Ashland board member, and Chester and Margaret Graham.
David Sonquist, who became the first director of Circle Pines, began working full time in the cooperative movement in 1935. Along with A.W. “Pop” Wanner, he organized more than 100 co-op buying clubs in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, the cities from which most early Circle Piners came. Dave embraced the co-op movement while a Ph.D. student at the University of Chicago. Prior to his affiliation with Circle Pines he had been a YMCA secretary, professor of social studies, secretary and president of the Central States Cooperative League, and educational director of the Central Michigan Cooperative Federation.
During the first year at Chief Noonday, 750 people vacationed at Circle Pines over a ten week period. The business and education programs on co-ops were supplemented by the folk singing and dancing, a youth institute, work camp, and women’s institute. Over 1000 people attended each summer for the next several years!
In 1939, with uncertainty about continuing the government lease on Chief Noonday, a group of campers investigated the 284 acre Stewart Lake site, and abandoned farm, that had belonged to the Stewart family since 1838. On July 26, 1939, a meeting was held at Chief Noonday to set up Circle Pines as an independent cooperative society since the board of the Central States Cooperative League did not wish to buy the site but did give permission to form a new co-op organization that could.
During the following months $900 was raised from 65 cooperators from all parts of the Central States Region, and on January 6, 1940 a new board met at Delton and purchased the property for $5000, the $1000 serving as down payment. Four years later the whole sum was paid off.
A CPC Board member, Ernest Wildman, a Quaker from Earlham College, contacted the American Friends Service Committee to invite them to hold a work camp at CPC to prepare the site. A group of 23 AFSC work campers came to CPC in the summer of 1940. These college age volunteers re-shingled and repaired the farmhouse, installed a septic system, fixed the well, and in five days built a temporary dining hall at the lake.
The 1940 season opened at three sites: the regular camp at Chief Noonday, the Quaker work camp at CPC, and a high school youth work camp at the lake front lodge above the beach, which no longer exists. The first membership meeting at the new site was held in October, 1940 with nearly ninety members and friends.
1941 Was the last year that Circle Pines used Chief Noonday; a second Quaker work camp was held at the new site and a children’s camp was started in the Mansion. In 1942 Circle Pines held all its activities at the Stewart Lake property, including operating a farm. The Quaker work camps inspired the youth work camps and the tradition that all campers do work projects, which has been a cornerstone of life at CPC ever since.
Dave Sonquist became director of CPC full time in 1942 at a salary of $750 per year. He remained director until 1950, when Jane Reed took over. Bill Knox was hired in 1943 to build the bath house, the beginning of his long and influential stay at CPC. Bill was born in South Dakota in 1892. He learned about the co-op movement when his father became a member of the county co-op grain elevator. Bill ran his own farm from 1920 to 1934. Before coming to CPC in 1944, he was a carpenter in Detroit, active in three co-ops, and secretary of the Detroit Regional Co-op. Most of the buildings at CPC–the bathhouse, Orchard, Junior, and Acorn cabins bear his mark. In 1948 he began a long tenure as editor of Pine Needles, and his talks about co-ops, star gazing, and Esperanto are legendary.
There was discussion during this time about rebuilding the camp and Aaron Green, a colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright, suggested that the famous architect might be interested. He was, and in October 1941, Fred Thornwaite, Viola Jo Kreiner, Dave Sonquist and Jack Gordon went to Taliesin at Spring Green, Wisconsin to visit Wright. Green returned to CPC with the group and made preliminary sketches but nothing ever came of the Frank Lloyd Wright plans. The adorn the cover of the 1944 CPC Anthology, and years ago I found them in a book on Frank Lloyd Wright’s work.
The success and future direction of the early years was shaped by World War II. Youth and family attendance flourished as families canceled more expensive vacations and gas was rationed. After the war years, adult attendance declined and the pattern of Circle Pines as primarily a children’s and family camp became established. Periodic attempts to establish a residential school and homesteading never came to fruition.
Thus, Circle Pines was born and developed from its roots in the Cooperative Movement, Quaker Work Camps, and Danish Folk Schools. The 1940 organizing committee stated that the purpose of Circle Pines was “…to create, establish, and maintain a center of cooperative culture in the central United States for the purpose of carrying on cooperative education and to advocate and teach the superior advantages of cooperation as a way of life…”
An early visitor to CPC, Harold Knight, wrote in the Co-op Crier of August 1939: “At Circle Pines Center we have a chance to practice what we preach–a congenial, relaxed, unhurried life amid nature’s beauties and sincere community fellowship. Of course there is so much going on at Circle Pines Center–some of us thought we would do nothing but sleep, swim, and sun–we find ourselves working in the craft shops, attending discussion sessions, folk dancing, writing and acting our own plays and skits, sketching, singing, and participating in other forms of group and individual expression. But these types of creative activity are so far from our usual everyday hustle and bustle that we are rested, refreshed and inspired.” (from P. 1 of CPC 35th Anniversary Anthology.)
P.S. This brief history was compiled from a variety of sources, including an 80 page diary of Circle Pines history by David Sonquist. Any suggestions, corrections, would be appreciated.
The 35th Anniversary Anthology (1973), edited by a committee headed by Marian Brynes, and still available, is a wonderful collection of historical, biographical, anecdotal, and inspirational pieces. The definitive history of CPC is yet to be written!
July, 1998