Epworth Forest Conference Center (North Webster, Kosciusko County, Ind.) records

The Epworth League, a Methodist youth society, began its annual summer institutes within the management of the Institute of the Northwest Conference at Battleground, Indiana but felt a need to form an independent Epworth League Institute. They did so at Oakwood Park, Lake Wawasee in 1916. In 1923, "Epworth Forest" in North Webster was purchased. The conference purchased 100 acres along Lake Webster for $25,000. Soon lots were sold, cottages, a hotel, and an auditorium were built, and by 1924, the year of its first institute, it was already a going concern. Over the years it has added Camp Adventure Lodge, Cokesbury Inn, tennis court, ball diamond, amphitheater, auditorium, hospital unit, and sewage disposal plant. It has also conducted among its various camping activities, a choir school, an orchestra, a playhouse, and published its own newspaper. It has evolved into a state-of-the-art facility, but one still might remember the day when room and board at the Epworth Hotel was $3.00 a week, the Richwine Drug Store sold sodas and shakes, and the H and L Garage in North Webster “repaired your tires while you waited”. The Epworth Assembly began in 1935.