Dead Presidents

Chris White is touring the gravesites, birthplaces and homes of the U.S. presidents. Here are his notes from those visits, which he probably means to be funny. Eh.

31. Herbert Calvin Hoover

Camp Rapidan, Madison County, Virginia

Camp Rapidan (July 26, 2008)

"My friends have made the American people think me a sort of superman," Herbert Hoover said after his election as president. "They expect the impossible and should there arise in the land conditions with which the political machinery is unable to cope, I will be the one to suffer." And then there was a thunderclap, a timpani roll, the faint sound on the wind of an old woman cackling ...

We could use a man like Herbert Hoover right now! It's intriguing to think about a guy who, facing economic problems 10 times worse, rolled up his sleeves and did mostly nothing. He didn't think government should be fixing such things. (And he wasn't a hard-hearted bastard: he had a sterling record as a humanitarian.) Hoover might have been right -- some historians and economists think The New Deal made the Depression worse -- but now he's lodged on the blooper reel of presidential history, right after the clip of Chester Arthur getting hit in the nuts with a baseball.

It's a sad fate for a guy with a very impressive career. As a mining consultant, he was the highest salaried man of his age (27); he was one of the most prolific and energetic Cabinet secretaries in history (Commerce); and most important, he wrote a book on trout fishing.

TROUT FISHING! FEEL THE EXCITEMENT! Or better yet, live the excitement yourself! Visit Camp Rapidan, the original presidential retreat -- because when a significant chunk of the country is forced to live in tents, what better way to show them you care than by living in your own tent?

Here's the back story: After his election, Hoover (an Iowan) put out the word that he was looking for weekend digs away from the horrible godforsaken hellhole that is Washington (too many tourists on Segways), and the good people of Madison County, Va., stepped up to the plate by stocking the local streams and brushing the three teeth in the county to a brilliant gleam. One sales pitch later, the Hoovers dipped into their personal fortune to buy some land, and Camp Rapidan was born. Today it's part of Shenandoah National Park. (Hoover donated it to the government after his presidency.)

When they say "camp," they mean it. The Hoovers weren't nancies -- you don't run mining operations in China for a decade without learning a) how to rough it; and b) enough karate to fight off bears. The original plan was for everyone to stay in canvas tents, and also to hunt large game with obsidian-flake daggers while wearing loincloths. But trips to Rapidan became working vacations, and you can't tell the Prime Minister of England to bring his own sleeping bag more than once, so the camp was improved to include some more-permanent structures. That included "The Brown House" (get it? It's not white! Hah!) for the Hoovers themselves. Check it:

Cozy, and ... uh, brown. The house is right next to a trout stream, and the porch was built around existing tree trunks. I didn't get to go inside, because apparently you need a ranger-guided tour, which you don't get if you actually HIKE to the camp in a effort to have better fitness than, say, Herbert Hoover. But pressing my face against the screen, I was able to determine that Herbert Hoover had manacles for his slaves bolted to every wall, shelves full of satanic texts and several cast-iron bathtubs for his personal gin-making operations. If the National Park Service wants me to say otherwise, then they can damn well leave the doors unlocked.

You can chill out on the porch and enjoy the view, though, and there's a really informative little display in one of the other cabins on the history of the site and the Hoovers themselves. They were a pretty dynamic duo; Lou Henry (i.e. Mrs. Hoover) was the first American woman with a geology degree and apparently oversaw the entire construction and management of Camp Rapidan, right down to the proper techniques for lashing the camp's Filipino manservants. Mostly, though, you'll just want to soak up the atmosphere. I've never been a big camper or fisherman, but if the entire world was falling into crippling poverty and I was powerless to stop it, you know what? I might buy 160 acres in the mountains and bait a hook every now and then. That or buy one of those Nintendo Wiis. Whichever is in my budget.

FUN HOOVER FACTS!

  • The only president to receive our nation's highest honor: mention in a sitcom theme song.
  • One of two presidents to refuse his salary (JFK), opting instead for WHAT'S IN THE BOX!
  • The Filipino stewards at Camp Rapidan were reassigned from the presidential yacht, which Hoover transferred to his Chinese opium-smuggling fleet.
  • In 1927, Secretary of Commerce Hoover was the first person ever to appear on an intercity television broadcast, on the hit show "Hoover of Love."
  • At the opening of Camp Rapidan, a celebration for the locals was catered with 5,000 tin cups of squirrel stew. Squirrels mark this as the start of the Squirrel Great Depression.
  • FDR had Hoover Dam renamed as Boulder Dam to spite Hoover, who was a critic of the New Deal. FDR also refused to use Camp Rapidan as a retreat, complaining of lingering Hoover smell. Hoover tried to rename Hoovervilles as Crippletowns, to no avail.

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