Product Code Database
Camp Mystic is a private non-denominational Christian girls' summer camp in unincorporated Kerr County, Texas, US. It is set on a campus consisting of two neighboring sites southwest of Hunt, near the confluence of the South Fork Guadalupe River and Cypress Creek. The camp serves girls aged eight to seventeen.
The camp suffered heavy damage from the July 2025 Central Texas floods, with 27 confirmed fatalities, six more people missing, and buildings destroyed.
The camp paused operations during World War II from 1943 to 1945, when it functioned as a rest and relaxation site for soldiers, offering two six-week sessions. Following the war, the camp began offering two sessions each summer.
Inez and Frank Harrison, affectionately called "Iney and Frank," were brought to Mystic in December 1948 by then-owner Agnes "Ag" Stacy. They were directors of Mystic from 1948 until their retirement in 1987.
The camp was impacted by flooding from the Guadalupe River in 1978, with a program director later recounting hauling over 100 campers in station wagons to higher ground with other staff in the dead of night. The camp also faced flooding again in 1984.
The camp offered two camp sessions a year until 1983, when a third session was added. By 1996, a session at Camp Mystic cost . In 2011, a 30-day session cost .
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, camp leadership underwent a protracted family feud. As of 2025, the camp was owned by Dick and Tweety Eastland.
In the 2010s, the camp expanded from their original Guadalupe site to the new Cypress Lake site. This expansion included the construction of cabins, a dining hall, a chapel, and an archery range for the new site.
Between 2011 and 2020, FEMA re-shaped its Special Flood Hazard Area to exclude 30 camp buildings following appeals from the camp, possibly due to insurance or increased regulation concerns. The Special Flood Hazard Area marks the region most at risk for once-in-a-century floods. In 2025, at least 12 camp structures were considered to be within the Special Flood Hazard Area, with more being partially within the area.
When the Guadalupe campsite flooded, campers took shelter in cabins, a recreation hall, and the tops of hills. The Cypress Lake site of the camp also experienced flooding, which was not intense enough to flood cabins but there did result in property damage, including a damaged waterfront. By dawn, the campers at the Guadalupe site and the Cypress lake site had no access to food, running water, or power. Rescue efforts were under way by the afternoon of July 4, with campers taken to an elementary school in Ingram being used as a reunification center.
, 27 campers and counselors were known to have died in the flooding, and six were still missing. Dick Eastland was among the dead; his family posted on social media that he had died while trying to evacuate campers. The camp's infrastructure was heavily damaged, with cabins swept away by the water; the Guadalupe site was reported as being "completely in ruin".
On December 12, 2025, Camp Mystic announced that they would install a flood warning system on camp grounds.
The camp's recreation hall was built in the 1920s, using lumber from local cypress trees.
As of 2018, the camp had 78 counselors. In early July 2025, the camp had 108 staff.
The camp offers a variety of outdoor activities, including archery, canoeing, cheerleading, fishing, horseback riding, lacrosse, and riflery, as well as indoor activities, including cooking, journalism, and "beauty—including classes in politeness training and facials". Upon arrival, campers choose their activities and are given individual schedules. Campers are divided into two teams, the "Kiowa and Tonkawa 'tribes'", who compete through sports and games over the course of each session.
Campers do not have access to electronics and are encouraged to write letters home. Parents are offered a one-way email service to contact their children.
Sundays are "reserved for praise and worship on the waterfront and vespers on Chapel Hill".
Campers are assigned seats in the dining hall, but arrangements are changed every week. Fried chicken is served every Sunday. Blue Bell ice cream is offered for daily dessert after lunch.
The camp maintains ties with the boys' camps Camp Stewart and Camp Vista, and campers visit Mystic for dances and "a program of skits".
|
|
