How Did Camp Shehaqua Get Its Name?
The sound of "Shehaqua" might lead you to think that it's a Native American name, just like Susquehanna, or Shenandoah, or Pocono. But Camp Shehaqua was named for three towns belonging to the Anthracite Council Girl Scouts: SHE represents the Girl Scout group in Shenandoah, HA is for the women in Hazleton, and QUA is for the Tamaqua Council of Girl Scouts.
Two of these towns—Shenandoah and Tamaqua—do have Native American names, however, so the name Shehaqua is at least partly Native American. And yes, Shenandoah is the name of a town in Pennsylvania, even though the Shenandoah River does not flow through the state.
Native Americans used to live in the area where we now hold our Shehaqua family camps. When Pennsylvania was settled, the Lenni Lenape, named by the Europeans the "Delaware," held the territory that would eventually become Hickory Run State Park. The area was also claimed at one point by the Susquehannock Indians and later by the Iroquois Nation.
Camp Shehaqua was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Depression. President Roosevelt established the CCC with an executive order on April 5, 1933. The CCC was part of his New Deal legislation, combating high unemployment during the Great Depression by putting hundreds of thousands of young men to work on environmental conservation projects in America's public lands, forests, and parks.
