Maurice Arthur Hirshberg’s passion for the outdoors began early in his life. As a young boy, he spent weeks camping with his father Samuel, who was a rabbi in Milwaukee. When asked why he ever decided to start a camp, Doc H, as he was fondly called by those who knew him, cited these early memories as the catalyst behind Camp Horseshoe. He had so much fun and got so much out of the time he spent with his father in the woods that he decided he had to share his passion with others. Not only did these memories profoundly affect his own life, but they would eventually be the foundation for shaping generations of boys and men to come. 

In 1932, Doc H decided to start a summer camp for boys. Like his father, he too had become a rabbi, but recognized that his heart belonged in the woods.  He began his search for the perfect piece of property in Maine and the Adirondacks, but found the area too settled, too densely populated, too developed for the kind of camp he envisioned. Doc H wanted wilderness.  He wanted “much wilder country.” His search led him into the untamed West, to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. 

Beginning in Vilas county and going “right straight across the state,” Doc H and his partner, Al Engelhardt, hunted the Northwoods for a sloping, sand-based property interspersed by thin pines and situated on a round, tranquil lake. If the land was sandy, Doc H concluded, a “half hour after a rain our boys can be on the playing fields, playing.” If the pines were thin, he believed there would be less danger of a tree being struck down in inclement weather.    

It was not an easy time to begin such a search. The nation was stuck at the bottom of the Great Depression. Men were willing to work any kind of job for a mere 25 cents an hour. Saw mills were stacked with lumber nobody could afford to buy. Banks all over the state were closing. They searched for months, diving into icy lakes to check the consistency of the beds, examining all kinds of property without discovering what they wanted.

The two men finally found their spot in Minong, Wisconsin. In fact, it was more than they could have hoped for, with two lakes, frontage on a third, a bit of riverfront, sandy soil and scores of thin Jack Pine. The land was so ideal that instead of buying 40 acres, they snatched up 800.

The cabins were built using wood cut directly from the camp’s property. Among the buildings built that first summer of 1933 were the main dining hall, the kitchen, a front row of cabins, the power house and an ice house. The camp started small. There were 35 boys the first season. By the second summer that number had risen to 60. Doc H built up the camp by word of mouth, traveling by train down south to New Orleans and back up to the North Shore of Chicago, visiting families and explaining his vision. The Horseshoe experience was not just about the woods and the camping and the sports, but about living with other people and learning to accept them for who they are. It was about  maturing, about discovering what lay beyond the boundaries of comfort and custom. Most of all, though, Horseshoe was about friendship.  The friendships the boys forged at camp would become something more, something akin to family. Horseshoe friends were the kind of friends somebody could see after five, ten or twenty years and start a conversation as if it had just stopped the day before. Eventually the number of campers soared to 150 boys every summer.

As far as activities went, Doc H believed that a “camp’s program should make the most out of the environment in which it finds itself.” Because Horseshoe was surrounded by woods, rivers and lakes, the emphasis was on rowing, sailing, canoeing, land sports and tripping. For the first ten years Horseshoe also offered horseback riding to the boys. Doc H eventually decided that horses were just too expensive and time intensive to maintain, and he sold them.

Although many of the boys came from Chicago, there were also campers from Omaha, St. Louis, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, New York, Birmingham and Atlanta. 

Horseshoe rolled along. One of the amazing things about the camp was the creativity, curiosity and fun that abounded. All-night treasure hunts were designed with clues hidden in dead fish and in the shoes of the campers following the clues. Counselors were notorious for pulling “stunts” on campers. In one such stunt the counselors informed the entire camp during the early morning reading of current events that on such and such a day there would be a total eclipse of the sun. Then, a few days later, the counselors would wake all the boys up in the middle of the night with reveille. The boys washed up and came to the flagpole with the morning bugles until finally all the counselors busted out or a boy checked his watch. 

Until 1939, Al Englehardt co-directed Horseshoe alongside Doc H. Doc H eased Gordy Morrison into the director position, and by 1961 he had acquired sole directorship. The Bear, as he was known, was a tough, charismatic leader. Unfortunately, in 1973, Gordy suffered a major heart attack and died. Bob Mercier took the reigns in 1973. He did much to enhance Horseshoe’s tripping program and was beloved by all who knew him. When people talk about Horseshoe, Merc’s name almost always comes up. Scott Morrison, Gordy’s son, took over in 1985 and led the camp until it closed in 1990.

In January of 2002, Jordan and Fran Shiner began their own search for a property on which to build a camp for boys. Jordan had been a camper at the old Horseshoe, and those wonderful experiences had already led him to a lifelong career in camping. Like Doc H, he too decided he had to share these experiences with others, and that to do that most effectively he had to own his own camp. 

It was not an easy time to begin such a search. The economy was floundering. Land prices were high. Many people believed that the era of camps was over, that it was impossible, both logistically and financially, to start a new camp. He and Fran searched the Northwoods for two years, initiating deal after deal only to see them all fall apart. 

Finally, in the spring of 2003, they finalized a deal for 143 acres of lakefront property on Snowden Lake in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Like the old camp, the land was situated around a round, peaceful lake. The soil was sand based and ideal for drainage. Again, here was a place where a “half hour after a rain our boys can be on the playing fields, playing.” In essence, it was perfect. There they rekindled the torches of Horseshoe, combining the old traditions with innovative activities and boundless energy. Together they have created an unbelievable camp in the indomitable spirit of Horseshoe Minong. Although it has only been eight weeks, it feels like we’ve been around for eighty years. After only one summer, Horseshoe Rhinelander has become so much more than just a beautiful piece of property filled with unbelievable facilities. It is alive with the sounds of boys cheering, screen-doors shutting and horseshoes clanging. It has become a place full of roots and memories and stories. It has become our home.