I have been asking many questions of late about why Camp Martin Johnson was sold. In 1976 the camp celebrated its 50 anniversary and things were going quite well at that time with up to 500 campers attending CMJ and then a scant four years later it was being sold. The Hyde Park YMCA came up with these reasons:
(1) Dwindling Enrollment: That reason I find hard to fanthom giving what was said a mere four years earlier.
(2) Financial Problems: Funds for transporting the kids 350 miles to camp but that always existed. They also cited stiff and rising real estate taxes as well as strict Michigan Building Codes. Yet these all existed in previous years too.
(3) Too expensive to Operate. A slight raise in fees would have solved that problem.
Four years earlier NONE of these were mentioned as problems. Mike Reynolds has informed me that schools in Ludington and Scottville often rented the camp for various purposes in the off season and that was additional income. The Hyde Park YMCA also gave an alternative option of using Pinewood Camp also in the area but would not that camp have the same financial problems? The real culprit in all this was the Chicago Metropolitan YMCA which had the final say on CMJ.
Initially, in 1926 the camp was sold by Martin Johnson himself for the fee of $9,000 of which he was to receive a 6% annual anuity of about $545. Johnson’s lawyer urged him to sell the camp to the YMCA for $50,000. But Johnson had a God inspired vision for his property to be used by boys and girls for camping. He was also to retain his personal house to live in at the camp.
If the camp was in financial problems why not sell some of the land off of Bluegill Lake or even Little Bass Lake to pay for the taxes and upkeep while retaining the main camp area around Big Bass Lake?
I would also be interested to learn about the will of Martin Johnson and if it allowed selling the camp for any reason. In Part Two tomorrow morning I have even more questins to purpose about the selling of this camp. Presently this seems to be the only website that is active about the camp. Former campers can send pictures to my email address page on the menu.
Big Bass Lake & Beyond 