Camp Alkulana

Camp Alkulana, one of Virginia’s oldest residential summer camps, was established in 1915 and moved here in 1917. Nannie Crump West, a social reformer who directed a settlement house in Richmond under the auspices of that city’s Baptist Woman’s Missionary Circle, founded the camp to provide the benefits of outdoor recreation to girls from urban, working-class families. Swimming, hiking, cave exploring, crafts, and religious services afforded the campers leisure, adventure, practical skills, and spiritual growth. The camp’s Rustic-style buildings blended with the environment and encouraged closeness with nature. Boys began attending about 1950, and the camp was racially desegregated in 1968.