The Civilian Conservation Corps was authorized by Congress in 1933 to provide employment and vocational training to young men during the Great Depression, and it carried out forestry and soil conservation projects across the nation. Company 752 occupied a camp at this site from October 2, 1934, through August 15, 1941, housing up to 200 men in the compound known as Camp Thayer, whose motto was "We lead, others follow." Men from Camp Thayer were sent to the Republican Valley after the 1935 flood to perform emergency work. During World War II, six of the nine barracks at the former camp were used as a side camp for as many as 120 German prisoners of war from the overcrowded POW camp at Concordia, Kansas. The first prisoners arrived in early December 1943, and they performed farm work arranged by the Thayer County Non-Stock Cooperative Labor Association, replacing local men who had entered military service. The Hebron POW camp closed on November 15, 1945, and the site of the camps is now the city's Riverside Park.