During the Great Depression, the Day Lake CCC Camp became part of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a major conservation and employment program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide jobs and restore the environment. One of 20 camps established in Minnesota, Day Lake was built in 1933, and its first enrollees were African Americans from Kansas and Missouri working in Company 786; it was the only camp in the forest to host African Americans in the segregated CCC program. CCC crews, often called the "tree army," planted more than two billion trees across the United States in nine years and also carried out road construction, site preparation, surveys of lakes, wildlife, and streams, and rodent control. After the CCC era, Day Lake was one of only six camps that lasted on and became one of four camps in the Chippewa National Forest that housed German prisoners of war during World War II from 1943 to 1945. As Allied forces gained in North Africa, prisoners were shipped to the U.S., where those held at Day Lake worked in local saw mills and for private logging firms; their wages went to the U.S. Army, guards were present, security was minimal, and few escapes were reported. Remains of the camp include a concrete shower west of Highway 38 and, east of the highway and up a hill, an outdoor stone stairway and chimney from the camp mess hall, while much of the site was later replanted with red pine.