President Herbert Hoover

President Herbert Hoover

President Hoover delivered those words in Madison County on Aug. 17, 1929 at the celebration of “Hoover Day in Madison.”

The president was a frequent visitor to the wilds of Madison in those days; indeed, he had only months before purchased 164 acres high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just above the point where Mill Prong and Laurel Prong combine to become the Rapidan River.

Mr. Hoover paid the princely sum of $5 per acre for the tract, finding that it fulfilled his three criteria for a presidential retreat: that it be within 100 miles of Washington, D.C., that it be on a trout stream, and that it be free of mosquitos.

Those were the days before Shenandoah National Park, before paved roads, and before electricity and telephones had arrived on the morning side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Sixty-one years later, standing outside the president’s cabin at Camp Hoover, it is hard to imagine what the trip from the “other” Washington must have been like. The roads in Madison County were still largely dirt, maintained by the private landowners whose land fronted the narrow lanes, and their rough surface must have provided a bone-jarring ride to the president and his guests.

As visitors to “Hoover Days,” Shenandoah National Park’s annual open house at the camp, arrived by the busload and walked through and around the three remaining cabins, the modern world seemed to have overtaken the president’s hideaway.

But the breathtaking natural beauty of the site remains. Shielded from the summer sun by towering hemlock trees, the cabins remain cool even in the dog days of August.

And the two streams which gird the camp, along with several waterways which babble through its center, provide a constant, reassuring

Rappahannock 4-H

Livestock Club would

like to express special

appreciation to:

Eileen M. Day, Realtor

and

S perry ville Emporium

for their continued support

of the Culpeper-MadisonRappahannock

Farm Show