FOREST ARMY: National CCC Reunion a Huge Success!

My purpose here.....

My purpose here is two-fold: (1) To share information about the Civilian Conservation Corps and (2) To perhaps learn something about the world of blogging. If you find fault with the structure or layout of this blog, I hope you’ll just understand that it’s the result of a new guy trying to run an unfamiliar piece of equipment, all the while hoping he doesn’t lose a finger in the process. Which is to say, I hope you’ll stand quietly by and hope for the best. If you find fault with the content or the accuracy of things you find in this blog, I hope that you’ll bring them to my attention in a friendly, “thought you should know,” sort of way.

Although I said my purpose was two-fold, like an old work shirt, there may be many folds to this thing before all is said and done. I’d like to instill my passion for the history of the CCC in others, perhaps share some of the odd facts and figures that I’ve uncovered in more than a decade of study and post some photos that you may not have seen anywhere else. Additionally, I’d like to use this forum to let folks know what the CCC alumni are up to these days. I can’t promise you that there will be new content daily, or weekly or even monthly, but initially I hope to bring over a number of CCC-related articles that I’ve already written in order to provide some usefulness and entertainment at the outset. I have said on a number of occasions that there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the Civilian Conservation Corps and what it meant to the United States. I hope that some of that passion will be evident as you browse through – and hopefully enjoy – my blog.

CCC Legacy Chapter 44

Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy (Formerly the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumi and the Camp Roosevelt Legacy Foundation) has numerous local chapters across the United States. Phoenix is home to CCC Legacy Chapter 44 , which meets the third Saturday of every month (except July and August) at the Maryvale Medical Center Cafeteria. Chapter 44 also produces a quarterly newsletter the "Cactus Country Crier."

If you live in the Phoenix area or anticipate a visit and have an interest in the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps or if you just like to hang out with fellows who've seen a lot in their lives, we'd welcome you at our meetings. Post a comment here in this blog and I'll respond to you with an email directly.
Mike

Saturday, October 6, 2007

National CCC Reunion a Huge Success!

Kentucky’s Cumberland Falls State Park played host to the 2007 national reunion of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni (NACCCA) on September 27th, 28th and 29th. Approximately 110 registrants attended the event and the headcount at the closing banquet seemed to be higher still. Park Naturalist Brett Smitley estimated that of the total in attendance, 70 were former CCC enrollees. Smitley was the primary organizer of the event and his hard work paid off in the form of a satisfying gathering for these former “soil soldiers” and “tree troopers” whose numbers grow thinner with every passing day. (Estimates state that about 1,000 World War II veterans die every day. To place this figure in context, consider the fact that many CCC enrollees were 17 to 20 years of age in 1933 – nine years before the U.S. entered the war.)

Cumberland Falls hosts an annual reunion for local CCC veterans, but this national reunion is the last major gathering before next year’s 75th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Civilian Conservation Corps, a huge work relief program that put some 3 million young men to work in America’s forests, fields and parks between 1933 and 1942. NACCCA holds a national reunion every fall. Dallas played host in 2006, Rapid City hosted the reunion in 2005 and Phoenix was the host city in 2004.

During the reunion, visitors enjoyed fascinating presentations by Forest Service personnel who described archeological work done at the sites of a number of former CCC camps in Kentucky. Bill Jamerson presented his documentary film on CCC life in Michigan and entertained those gathered with his humorous folks songs describing life as it was in the CCC camps. An authentic bluegrass band, Ballard Ford, provided the entertainment for the big banquet the final night of the reunion.

The reunion setting could not have been more fitting. The CCC constructed numerous improvements in the Cumberland Falls area, including Dupont Lodge and hiking trails that visitors continue to enjoy today. On the CCC Memorial Trail, a careful hiker will find one of the concrete dynamite storage boxes the CCC enrollees placed in the side of a rock outcropping and rest on a well-placed stone bench near the end of the hike.

With former enrollees now in their 80s and 90s, the opportunity for mass gatherings of former CCC boys is quickly fading. Hopefully in the future these events will begin to attract a larger number of historians and students of forest, conservation and recreation history as well as the descendants – sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters - of CCC enrollees, who will gather yearly, not so much as a form of reunion but as a means of honoring the work of the largest peacetime mobilization this nation has ever seen.