Bob Hodgon's account of Millcreek History and a Pictorial View Through Time
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From Bob Hodgdon
I don't remember just when my dad BE bought the land; it was fairly cheap because it flooded by several feet in the 1951 flood and was subject to that until the Corps did their work on the dikes and upstream sometime later. It was a truck farm; pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, watermelons, maybe even tomatoes and potatoes and later I think corn and other grain.
My brother JB and I went there to shoot .22s at bottles and cans thrown into the river; set up a backstop and shot high power rifles at targets later. Threw lots of clay targets by hand; all this from the time I was 14 or 15 until much later. BE saw his loss of property as the river washed the banks away, so we began to throw old cans, mattresses, springs, metal items of all cans, and later car bodies over the side of the "bluff". It worked or just the Lord decided to change the way it was washing and we gained back some lost ground.
I took my 37mm cannon out there; shot .303 British through the sub-caliber device to mark where in the river the shot would go, and then fired a few 37MM rounds, much to the satisfaction of my buddies and myself.
We did the 4th of July a few times there, when we could set off stuff larger than we could do at home.
He decided to give the ground to a group of guys who formed the Mill Creek Club; first a 30 acre plot or something like that, and then the whole plot shortly before he died. It was to be a private club but to always promote the shooting sports; part of his legacy to the sport that rewarded him so well. If it were to no longer be used as a range, it reverts back to the family!
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Robert E. Hodgdon - Treasurer/Board Member
Hodgdon Powder Company, Inc.
Pictorial History of Millcreek Rifle Club
1941 - Zoomed out - Millcreek Rifle Club land. The land was owned by a farmer
1941 - Zoomed in - Millcreek Rifle Club land. Please see the farm house and the barn in the lower left hand corned. The current location is approximately where the 500 yard berm is located
1954 - Zoomed out - The land south of the river has drastically changed and shrunk thanks to The Great Flood of 1951.
1954 - Zoomed in - The farm house, farm buildings and all the trees are gone. The property looks very similar to the current shape of MCRC land. One result of the 1951 flood is the Corp of Engineer's built berm that surrounds MCRC.
1991 - MCRC has firmly established itself on the land leased from the Hodgdon family. Most of the bigger ranges are already built including the 25 and 50 yard pistol ranges, 200 yard benchrest range, 318 yard highpower range and the LE range.
1996 - The 300 yard benchrest range and the berm associated with it have been completed but vegetation has not had a chance the establish itself on the disturbed land. The 7 yard range is now also visible in this picture.
2000 - Millcreek Rifle Club ranges are all complete.
2008 - A current color photo of Millcreek Rifle Club