Redleaf’s archaeologists conducted a heritage survey on the 1930s Eagle’s Nest Depression camp in order to investigate the material remains still present at the site. As one of the few surviving Depression-era camps, the Eagle's Nest Camp was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register in 2021.
In the 1930s, the camp quickly grew into a small settlement, comprising a mess hall with kitchen, showers and latrines, sleeping quarters for up to 50 people, as well as temporary huts, tool shed, vegetable garden, fowl house, cow shed, and pig sty. An impressive vegetable garden grew beans, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, lucerne and oats. The camp was supplied with water from a nearby spring for the men as well as for the pigs, fowl and four cows.
Significant remnants of the camp still exist today in Redwood Park. The vegetable garden currently exists as a large clearing, hut foundations with dry-stone stairs dot the hillside, a 1930s-era shipping tank with ceramic plumbing still stands in the kitchen, and evidence of animal pens can be found, along with troughs for stock.
Cobblestone paths, flower beds, pathways and more still wind their way through the wilderness, with some trees photographed in the 1930s able to be identified today. It's always great to conduct heritage surveys in places like this with such interesting history.