Company #589's Recreation Hall at McCormick's Creek State Park is the only remaining building from a once-bustling Civilian Conservation Corps camp assigned to the park from November 1933 to July 1935. The CCC's primary mission was to improve public land, and it also helped millions of unemployed young men during the Great Depression by providing income, food, shelter, clothing, educational classes, and recreation. While working on park projects, the CCC boys lived at the park in a camp that included barracks, a mess hall, bathhouse, and garage, while Camp Na Wa Kwa and Camp McCormick were converted into officer's quarters, an infirmary, and storage. The Recreation Hall contained games, athletic equipment, a library, piano, and radio for off-duty entertainment, with movies shown twice a month, dances held once a month, and academic and technical classes conducted there. In May 1934, Camp Inspector McVey wrote, "In my personal opinion [this camp] is surpassed by none that I have seen . . ." Over the years, the building served as an open-sided shelter for the Purdue Engineering Camp before 1933, a CCC Recreation Hall from 1933 to 1935, a Nature Center from 1935 to 1970, storage from 1970 to 1998, and underwent restoration from 1998 to 2004, followed by a dedication in September 2004. On March 18, 1993, the Recreation Hall, Front Gatehouse, and Stone Arch Bridge were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.