Camp Nelson National Monument

Camp Nelson, Bob, Emily and Milly
So much history here, and the promise of freedom serves. Inlisting US military, Blackman opportunities, ring the chains of bondage in a fight for the civil rights many signed up and joined, and then they were able to bring their families as well to live, get jobs as well as a education. THE HIKE IS GOOD,so is the history.
I WOULD RECOMMEND

What a great site.
And to top that, everybody was extremely helpful and friendly. Yes, the exact opposite of the rangers at The Grand Canyon.

I try to stop by Camp Nelson every year during their heritage days. For those that don't know it, there is an interesting history connected to it. While the event this year was not as large as the prepandemic years, it was still a nice place to visit.

Even without the event days, there is the tour of the home and several walking trails plus the small museum.

Ranger Steve is the best!

We visited on a Monday morning and we did not do our research properly and didn't realize the visitor center was only open Wednesday to Sunday until memorial day. They do have passport stamp outside the vistor center thank goodness so we could stamp our passport books. We were traveling between new river gorge NP and mammoth cave NP.

Now the cool part was when the kids were working on their junior ranger books (we printed out at home) on the front porch of the visitor center when ranger Steve opened the door to greet us. He apparently had a meeting that morning and saw us just sitting out there. He offered to let us come in quickly to get some more stamps like junior ranger and offered us more different junior ranger books and even talked with us and thenkids for awhile. He also presented the kids with junior ranger badges.

Apparently the park store had just opened in jan 2023 and the logi desgin for the park is amazing. See photos in review.

We hiked a few of the trails and saw the earth works. It was sad everything was stilled closed like the white house. At least the barracks you could see through the windows. They had a large oversized portapotty outside in the paekibg lit too. There was alot of hiking possible here and the grounds are very well maintained. Even without paved trails you could see the trails based on their mowing patterns. Great place to get out and do some hiking or going for a nice walk. It was relatively flat. It was sad we couldn't watch the video and learn more of the history but there are plaques everywhere in the fields that you can read as well.

If you're passing through i would definitely recommend a visit. Staff and facilities were great. Just make sure you viait when the visitor center is open.

Fairly new national park. The ranger was really friendly and helpful. Their museum was well laid out with lots of interesting artifacts. It was raining while we were there, so we didn’t get to check out the walking trails. There are a few miles of flat, paved trails that are dog friendly.