Camp Randall Trailer Park

For a few years following World War II the university's beautiful park was best known as a trailer court. After the war, millions of veterans, taking advantage of the GI bill, flooded America's campuses, often bringing their families. At the time, housing was at a premium and the university set up 91 single and double trailers, transferred from the Hercules Powder Co. in Baraboo, where they had housed defense workers. Couples could rent a one-bedroom trailer for $25 a month or a two-bedroom trailer for $32.50. We had antique trailers, nothing like the ones of today. Our second was bigger - it had a small kitchen with a two-burner hotplate and an ice box. There were communal bathrooms to serve the residents and a central laundry room.' No driers, though. Wet clothes were hung out on laundry lines and. Water for cooking and drinking had to be carried to each trailer and the used water had to be carried back and dumped. Space heaters provided heat and each resident was responsible for filling his 5-gallon fuel at the central drums provided by the university.' Camp Randall operated during the late 1940s until better married student housing could be constructed.