FOREST ARMY

A small mystery solved.

2012-01-16T05:54:00.000-08:00

In my last post at the Civilian Conservation Corps Resource Page, I spoke of tying up loose ends and how those loose ends don’t always bind up as nicely as we might like. In that particular case, the loose ends didn’t quite come together but it was an exciting moment or two as I sought to identify where a particular photograph might have come from.

As it turns out, there’s a loose end here at Forest Army and as luck would have it, the ends came together much more neatly this time around. In a post I made back in late 2010 I editorialized regarding the standardization and regimentation that were such an important part of the CCC’s success (you can see that post here.)

At that time, I was mystified by the purpose of a particular pole or post installation that I’ve encountered both in photographs and in the field. The pole looked like this in a photograph that I obtained from the National Association of CCC Alumni (NACCCA) back in the early 1990s.

I found a surprisingly similar pole installation at the site of a former CCC camp in Yavapai County, Arizona and have ruminated on its purpose ever since. It seems clear that a standard set of plans guided the construction and installation of poles like these; how else do you explain the striking similarity between two examples when one example is at Grand Canyon National Park and the other in a U.S. Forest Service CCC camp near Prescott, Arizona? But what were these posts or poles used for?

At the time, I wrote, “I’ve no idea what the purpose of the twin pole arrangement is; perhaps it was part of a gate, or perhaps it was one in a series of telephone or telegraph poles strung through the juniper…one wonders why the photographer even bothered with snapping the picture at all.”

Well, we’ve tied the loose ends together this time, thanks to some fortuitous help from a prolific local CCC researcher. About a week ago I received an email from Robert “Ranger Bob” Audretsch, who’d just wrapped up some research at the Grand Canyon museum. He attached one photo as representative of about “60 great photos” that he’d found for a project he’s working on. I don’t have the faintest clue why Bob picked the particular photo that he attached to his email but the second I opened it up, I knew that all the uncertainty surrounding the CCC mystery poles at Grand Canyon and Walnut Creek was cleared up. Sometimes the loose ends tie themselves up without much help.

The picture Ranger Bob emailed me shows three CCC boys working on a string of telephone or telegraph poles, with two guys cinching up the posts while a third guy strings the wire atop the pole. I’m wondering if it was safe for one enrollee to be climbing atop the pole before it was fully wired into place, but I suppose that was a matter for the project foreman to worry about. At any rate, they all appear to be working really hard; the camera captures them in something of a blur. There is no doubt that this photo depicts the same project that is depicted in the rather innocuous photo that I received from the NACCCA collection so many years ago and I’m pleased and proud to post them side by side here, perhaps for the first time ever.

Armed with the Grand Canyon telephone pole photo from Ranger Bob, I can now easily conclude that the similar pole installation I saw still standing at the former site of the Walnut Creek CCC camp was or a telephone or other type of wire strung to or through the camp. Who can guess what sorts of communications passed that way while the camp was in operation; we’ll never know, but we at least know why those poles were placed in the ground.

You can find more information about Ranger Bob Audretsch, his CCC research, and his book at his website CCC Books. Pay him a visit, look around, buy a book!

Holidays in the CCC

2011-12-10T19:33:00.001-08:00

Imagine feeling lonely and happy at the same time. That must be the feeling that many CCC enrollees had when special days like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s rolled around each year. Surely the feeling must be akin to the feelings a young soldier has, living in a barracks far from home during the holidays: a touch of warmth from the season, tempered by a twinge of loneliness and homesickness, charged with a bit of excitement over the thought of having a day off and a grand meal in the mess hall. Some of the lucky boys have gone home for Christmas so the camp is somewhat deserted and perhaps covered in a blanket of snow. The camp commander seems a bit more cordial than usual, stopping in each barracks to chat with the enrollees after the crews returned from the work site. A group of enrollees are in the mess hall helping the kitchen crew decorate for the big dinner and as darkness settles on the forest camp, they can be seen through the windows of the mess hall stringing crepe paper. Perhaps being stuck in camp won’t be so bad after all.

Christmas 1933 marked the first celebration of the holiday in the life of the CCC, and nationwide it was a special event marked by extraordinary efforts to bolster the morale of enrollees in camps from one end of the country to the other. In his book, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Alabama, 1933-1942 by Robert Pasquill, Jr. noted the following:

On December 22, 1933, the Gadsden Times announced that the 315,000 CCC men across the nation would be having a real Christmas. Camps were decorating trees. A special radio program was to be broadcast by the National Broadcast Company with messages by Director Fechner and Secretary of Agriculture Wallace. The railroads were offering special rates to enrollees. Some 445,000 were to be served for Christmas dinners.

No doubt that first CCC Christmas dinner in 1933 was a far more promising affair for many enrollees and their families than had been the Christmas of 1932, when there was no New Deal and no Civilian Conservation Corps.

The literature on the CCC is full of accounts of how the holidays were celebrated in the camps, which were really like small communities. Enrollees could save up leave during their enrollment and, when Christmas and New Year rolled around, the lucky ones would have an opportunity to return home for the holidays.

In Coming of Age in the Great Depression: The Civilian Conservation Corps Experience in New Mexico, 1933-1942, Richard Melzer noted:

Two of the biggest holidays of the year, Christmas and New Year’s, left many camps largely deserted. Fifty percent of the enrollees at SCS-4-N at El Rito were granted five-day leaves to go home for Christmas in1936, while the remaining fifty percent took their five-day leaves during the New Year’s holiday. Aware that a large percentage of all desertions occurred following major holidays, prudent officers took this opportunity to remind enrollees of the dire consequences of going AWOL. Although sometimes late, most enrollees returned to camp out of a personal sense of duty as well as a sincere desire to continue helping the loved ones they had just visited back home.

Naturally, not every enrollee was able to return home; some remained in camp at Christmastime and perhaps over New Years. Sympathetic commanders and technical staff usually tried to make the time as pleasant as possible.

The December 1936 issue of the North Woodstock, N.H. camp newspaper, The Pioneer, offered this glimpse of life in the camps over the holidays:

Lt. White, in a very jovial mood, made an impromptu speech in which he said in effect that the camp was ours for the day and that he wanted us to act as though we were at home with our families. The talk was received with enthusiasm by the men and they proceed to carry the lieutenant’s suggestion into effect, seldom have we heard so much noise everybody had a great deal of fun. We congratulate the lieutenant, the mess steward and the kitchen staff, they did a fine job.

(Quoted in Builder of Men: Life in the C.C.C. Camps of New Hampshire by David d. Draves.)

Borrowing from a practice started by U.S. soldiers in France during World War I, enrollees in some CCC camps would “adopt” children from the local community to help insure they had at least a small gift for Christmas, sometimes hosting parties at the camp with an appearance by Santa Claus himself. Writing in the Fall 2001 edition of The Historian, Robert A. Waller refers to one such CCC company:

South Carolina veterans camp Co. 2414 at Sumter (S.C.) enjoyed the most publicity in Happy Days when their 1934 Christmas party for the community children enjoyed pictorial coverage.
The social activities of the young men during their off-hours on weekends consumed much newsprint in Happy Days. The CCC boys created their own social life, often in connection with nearby communities during holidays or on the anniversary of the founding of the “Cees.” The commander of Co. 4486 at Liberty (S.C.) organized a Christmas dinner dance with music provided by the Jungaleers of Clemson College.
(From Happy Days and the Civilian Conservation Corps in South Carolina, 1933-1942 by Robert A. Waller, published in The Historian Vol. 64, No. 1, Fall 2001.)

In the December 1937 issue of The Score of 2704 at Camp SCS-14, Chatfield, Minnesota, the editors wrote of their regret at the impending disbandment of the Company, but looked forward to their final Christmas celebration together.

Dinner – Smoker Party on Program. Big Doin’s Planned. Here is the real news – before this company becomes history, there is going to be a great “going’s on.” As we go to press the date for the big event has not been decided, but we believe it will be next Friday nite.

There will be an extra special dinner in the mess hall coming soon. From what we hear it is going to be a second Thanksgiving feast.

But the real fun will be when the recreation hall is turned into a Monte Carlo. Each man will be handed a roll of five hundred dollars. What will he be able to do with his money?? There will be raffle wheels, bingo games and many ways for the men to spend and keep spending. The canteen will be open for business as usual, if there is any business, but with five hundred iron men one should buy something. Of course prices will be a little high. Candy and pop will sell for one hundred bucks at the bar. Cigarettes will go for the paltry sum of three hundred dollars. Of course the money will all be phoney and it will have to be used on our Monte Carlo nite. Is such a party fun?? Just read the story of a party like this one held by the men in this company when it was located up north.

It’s difficult to imagine celebrating a Christmas or New Year holiday in the midst of the Great Depression. It’s even more difficult to imagine facing the holidays in a CCC camp far from home with five dollars or less in your pocket and not much more than the prospect of a big dinner in the mess hall to keep your spirits buoyed up, but that’s what happened in hundreds of thousands of cases at thousands of camps scattered across the United States between 1933 and 1942. Who could know that with the advent of war, those bittersweet holidays in the CCC would be looked back upon with fondness by the grown men who left the CCC to fight across the world from 1942 to 1945?

Blacks in the CCC:

2011-02-23T19:04:00.000-08:00

A Forest Army Post in Honor of Black History Month

If the Civilian Conservation Corps had one failing, it would have to be in the area of racial integration and equality. Although the legislation that created the CCC included language expressly forbidding discrimination on the basis of race, problems cropped up almost immediately during the initial selection process in the individual states and continued throughout the life of the program. Looking back it seems clear that there was blame to go around; President Roosevelt was reluctant to use the New Deal as a platform to promote the sort of strong social agenda represented by integration, CCC Director Robert Fechner, as a southerner, was pre-disposed to notions favoring Jim Crow, some military officers were opposed to integration if not opposed to black enrollment altogether and finally, nationwide, communities large and small came out in opposition to the establishment of all-black CCC camps. And yet looking back there are exceptions to these notions and also reasons to be glad for the opportunity the CCC provided to young black men at perhaps our nation’s bleakest time and to view that opportunity for what it was: a small step toward future successes.

For excellent accounts of the initial problems and indeed a valuable discussion of the problem of racism in the CCC throughout its lifespan, two books immediately come to mind: John Salmond’s groundbreaking work from the 1960s, The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study and Joseph Speakman’s more recent book At Work in Penn’s Woods: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Pennsylvania. Both books devote an entire chapter to the issue of race and racism in the CCC; Salmond in a chapter titled “The Selection of Negroes, 1933-1937,” and Speakman in a chapter titled “African-Americans in Penn’s Woods. (A copy of Salmond’s important work is now available online and can be viewed here. For an earlier Forest Army review of At Work in Penn’s Woods click here.)

Speakman describes the life of black CCC enrollees as an existence in a parallel universe, in an organization similar to the CCC but called the “Colored Civilian Conservation Corps” – the CCCC. Speakman notes that approximately 250,000 black enrollees served in the CCC between 1933 and 1942 but he questions whether black enrollment would have been much different had Republican Representative Oscar De Priest (an African-American congressman from Illinois) not fought to have the non-discrimination amendment added to the legislation creating the Emergency Conservation Work program. As Speakman himself acknowledges, it is impossible to say what the alternative might have been had De Priest’s amendment not been made.

For his part, Salmond doesn’t delve too deeply into the what-ifs of diversity and racial integration in the CCC, however both he and Speakman cite an account from one black enrollee that is especially significant and insightful.

Meeting Jim Crow at Camp Dix

The black enrollee whom Salmond and Speakman quote is Luther C. Wandall and his comments appeared in the August 1935 issue of Crisis. Young Luther Wandall wrote at length about his experience in the CCC, from initial enrollment to camp life experiences. Wandall’s experience at Camp Dix is especially noteworthy as a glimpse not simply of how whites of the time treated blacks as a simple matter of policy but also how blacks viewed whites. Part of Wandall’s experience, under the heading “Jim Crow at Camp Dix,” merits an extensive quote:

We reached Camp Dix about 7:30 that evening. As we rolled up in front of headquarters an officer came out to the bus and told us: “You will double-time as you leave this bus, remove your hat when you hit the door, and when you are asked questions, answer ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir.’”

And here it was that Mr. James Crow first definitely put in his appearance. When my record was taken at Pier I, a “C” was placed on it. When the busloads were made up at Whitehall Street an officer reported as follows: “35, 8 colored.” But until now there had been no distinction made.

But before we left the bus the officer shouted emphatically: “Colored boys fall out in the rear.” The colored from several buses were herded together, and stood in line until after the white boys had been registered and taken to their tents. This seemed to be the established order of procedure at Camp Dix.

This separation of the colored from the whites was completely and rigidly maintained at this camp. One Puerto Rican, who was darker than I, and who preferred to be with the colored, was regarded as pitifully uninformed by the officers.

While we stood in line there, as well as afterwards, I was interested to observe these officers. They were contradictory, and by no means simple or uniform in type. Many of them were southerners, how many I could not tell. Out of their official character they were usually courteous, kindly, refined, and even intimate. They offered extra money to any of us who could sing or dance. On the other hand, some were vicious and ill-tempered, and apparently restrained only by fear.

So you can imagine my feelings when an officer, a small quiet fellow, obviously a southerner, asked me how I would like to stay in Camp Dix permanently as his clerk! This officer was very courteous, and seemed to be used to colored people, and liked them. I declined his offer.

Local Actions and Reactions, Good and Bad

When it came to honoring the no discrimination clause of the CCC act, individual states often had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the right. For example, regarding Arkansas’s CCC enrollment selection process, Salmond wrote of an exchange that took place between Director of CCC enrollment Frank W. Persons and Arkansas’s relief director William Rooksbery in 1933:
Similarly (compared to Georgia), after investigating an NAACP complaint of discrimination in Arkansas, Persons again threatened to withhold quotas. The state’s indignant relief director, William A. Rooksbery, unequivocally denied the charge that no Negroes had been selected. No less than three had in fact been enrolled, he protested, but Persons was unimpressed, and told him so. The chastened state official promised to induct more within the following few weeks.

And yet it seems that in some cases, the farther down the chain of authority we travel, the more receptive and open minded the parties became. Harley E. Jolley, writing in, That Magnificent Army of Youth and Peace: The Civilian Conservation Corps in North Carolina, 1933-1942, notes that officials at the county level often implored the state recruiting offices to increase their quota of black enrollees. For example, this appeal: “Hoke County’s case load more than half colored. Please advise if possible to change part of the white quota to colored.” And from Orange County: “If there is anything you can do toward allowing for a considerable number of negroes instead of white men it would certainly help out our local relief situation.” But Jolley goes on to point out that, “Invariably, however, the state CCC administrator summarily rejected such requests…”

Often, the local request for black enrollees came in the form of an awkward and easily identified backhand compliment that rings with cultural insensitivity today. Jolley recounts the editor of a local paper in Shelby, North Carolina, who wrote in support of an all black CCC camp being established nearby: “In the first place, the work to be done here is precisely the kind of work that negroes do better than white men. It will be ditch digging, terracing, and drainage work, with picks and hoes, and shovels. A gang of negroes…can do that kind of work better and happier than any other crew. In the second place, the colored boys are more tractable.” Later, an army engineer affiliated with the construction of the camp was quoted as saying, “Why, we have been controlling negroes in the south for more than 400 years. As a matter of fact, most of the progress of the Southland has been built on the broad shoulders of black boys just like these. They’ll be no problem to the city at all, whereas white boys often are.”

No question but the issue of race in the CCC was most significant in the south. In a region of the country where blacks made up as much as 50 percent of the total population, the lack of recruitment of blacks for work in southern CCC camps is disgusting today, but must be viewed in light of the overriding system of prejudice at the time. Further, cases of racism were not confined to the southern states by any means and looking back we find that camps were segregated by race nationwide and that all-black camps ran into local opposition in such seemingly progressive regions as California.

The January 13, 1934 issue of the Norfolk Journal and Guide reported that in September 1933 Eddie Simons, a young black enrollee, was given a dishonorable discharge on the spot and denied his last months pay when he refused to fan the flies off of a young lieutenant from the 16th Infantry, temporarily in command of a CCC camp in North Lisbon, New Jersey. After the NAACP took up young Simons’ cause and protested the injustice to no less a person than Robert Fechner, the enrollee was given an honorable discharge “free from any charge of insubordination” and paid what he was owed.

Salmond points out that, beyond the initial difficulty of actually getting young blacks selected and enrolled into the CCC, Arkansas citizens “accepted with equanimity many Negro camps…” while at places like Contra Costa County, California, members of the community noted that black enrollees assigned to a local camp were frequently, “in an intoxicated condition,” and claimed that the camp was “a menace to the peace and quiet of the community.” Likely as a result of this nationwide bias, CCC Director Robert Fechner never forced the issue and, if local protests erupted due to the all-black composition of a CCC camp, he would order the camp closed or moved onto an Army reservation, for, as both Salmond and Speakman point out, in Fechner’s own words, Fechner was “a Southerner by birth and raising” and thus he, “clearly understood the Negro problem.”

Fechner’s “Problem”

And yet it seems unclear whether Fechner did truly understand the “negro problem,” given that he insisted CCC companies be segregated by race and he seems to have been opposed to appointing blacks as supervisors in segregated, all-black CCC camps. Fechner clearly didn’t understand the “problem” from the point of view of the “negro” enrollee; perhaps Fechner simply thought of Negroes as a problem, best avoided and at least kept separate.

In his book Parks for Texas: Enduring Landscapes of the New Deal, historian James Wright Steely casts a light on what is perhaps the precise moment that Fechner decreed that CCC companies be segregated by race. In 1935 when local officials in Texas advocated keeping integrated CCC camps as a compromise – indeed as an alternative – to newly proposed all-black companies, Fechner was pushed “over the edge,” as Steely points out:
“It is astonishing to me that…Mr. Colp would suggest that white and colored Texas boys be enrolled in the same Civilian Conservation Corps company and domiciled in the same camp…Every negro enrollee in Texas is a Texas negro. No out of state negroes are sent into Texas and in conformity with that practice no Texas negroes will be sent to any other state.”

And thus the rules were established, the segregationist policy applied to camps in every state and territory, with the required camp and company reorganizations commencing immediately. And yet we occasionally get a glimpse of the task that Fechner had before him – notwithstanding his own racial prejudices – for he clearly understood the useful work that could be accomplished by CCC companies of any race and when faced with local opposition to all-black CCC camps, Fechner would bend to local pressure but not before reminding the locals what they might be missing. James Steely recounts Fechner’s response to the local populace following the redeployment of an all-black CCC camp from Goose Island State Park to Fort Sam Houston after it ran into local opposition. Fechner later explained to local officials: “We do not endeavor to force any community to accept a Civilian Conservation Corps company against its will, however we have to find a location for these negro companies and failing to work out the problem in a satisfactory manner…the War Department has always expressed its willingness to accept a negro company and place it on an Army reservation. Where this is done it means, of course, that the state loses an approved Civilian Conservation Corps camp.” [Emphasis added.] One can almost hear Fechner’s whispered, “It’s your loss,” nearly 80 years later.

Fechner will be viewed as no less close-minded with respect to appointing black supervisors in those all-black CCC companies that were as much a product of his personal preferences as any one else’s. In a letter dated September 26, 1935, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes wrote to Fechner:

I have your letter of September 24 in which you express doubt as to the advisability of appointing Negro supervisory personnel in Negro CCC camps. For my part, I am quite certain that Negroes can function in supervisory capacities just as efficiently as can white men and I do not think that they should be discriminated against merely on account of their color. I can see no menace to the program that you are so efficiently carrying out in giving just and proper recognition to members of the negro race.”

Robert Fechner was a product of his time and a man caught in the middle. Today it seems clear that Roosevelt appointed Fechner as a sop to southern states – in an effort to get the south to support his New Deal agenda. Once appointed, Fechner, whose own father had fought for the Confederacy and lost a leg as a result, seems to have been caught between a traditional loyalty to the old Jim Crow ways of his native south, and the burgeoning egalitarianism beginning to blossom in the United States. Sadly for Fechner, he happened to be put in charge of the one New Deal program best suited for taking bold steps in the area of racial equality. In hindsight, we should be thankful Fechner did as much as he did in this regard given his background and the tenor of the times. Indeed, James Steely points out yet another bitter bit of irony in the fact that black enrollees frequently worked on park and forest improvements that would ultimately be barred to African-American citizens under local Jim Crow laws and history will record that Robert Fechner had nothing whatsoever to do with how the parks were used once the CCC boys finished their work; the blame for that injustice falls at the feet of others.

Elsewhere, Occasional Integration

Naturally, in southern states, CCC camps were strictly segregated, however there were instances of integrated CCC camps elsewhere in the United States. For example, in Arizona, where the percentage of black residents was very small, there were not enough minority enrollees to create segregated CCC companies so young black men were simply enrolled into existing CCC companies. Speakman points out that the existence of even these few integrated camps annoyed Fechner, and yet, exist they did and generally with meaningful success.

The story of a black enrollee called “Old Joe,” offers a useful glimpse of how race relations were often smoothed over naturally in an integrated camp setting. Writing in the book Iron Mike: The Life of General Ernest L. Massad, James C. Milligan recounts the seemingly sad story of a black enrollee at a CCC camp in Sedona, Arizona. The enrollee, whom everyone called “Old Joe” was reportedly mentally retarded and likely should not have been admitted to the CCC on those grounds alone, but enrolled he was and assigned along with two other black enrollees to the Sedona camp. Unfortunately, Old Joe was being tormented by white enrollees who were deliberately scaring him at night. Old Joe went to then Lieutenant Massad and said, “Lieutenant, they’re going to kill me.” Lieutenant Massad soothed the frazzled enrollee’s nerves as best he could but it was an incident out in the field that eventually resolved the touchy racial situation. A group of enrollees were erecting a line of telephone poles along a roadside and were struggling with a particularly heavy one. Watching as four enrollees labored with the cumbersome telephone pole, Old Joe grew increasingly impatient until he finally pushed the struggling crew aside and, grabbing the bulky pole, single-handedly muscled the monster into the ground. Reportedly, from that point on all three black enrollees were treated as equals and Old Joe’s tormenters left him alone. With regard to race, Milligan quotes Massad as saying: “When they [the three black enrollees] showed up, I had too much military in me; I had no prejudice at all. The boys all looked the same to me, and they were treated just like everybody else. If they got into trouble they were treated just like the others.”

Perhaps Arizona – situated as it is, west of – rather than north or south of - the Mason-Dixon line – was better suited for more than a fair share of pre-integration experimentation during the 1930s. In his forthcoming book, Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys: The Civilian Conservation Corps at Grand Canyon, 1933-1942, scheduled for publication in 2012, historian Bob Audretsch relates the story of John B. Scott, a black CCC enrollee who worked right alongside white enrollees at Grand Canyon. Indeed, Scott, who hailed from Spur, Texas, was so well respected that he was assigned the task of monitoring new enrollees on the work site and his diligence saved the life of at least one new enrollee (but you’ll have to wait for the Audretsch book to come out to learn the details). One detail of John Scott’s service in the CCC is striking and that is the fact that if he was indeed from Texas (as is indicated in the 1936 Phoenix District Annual) it means his case represents a situation where a black enrollee was working outside of his home state in a CCC camp in another state, in the same Corps area, after Fechner’s 1935 directive that blacks be placed in camps within their home states.

Despite Fechner’s reluctance, or outright opposition to putting blacks in positions of authority in CCC camps, some blacks did indeed rise to supervisory positions in the all-black CCC camps. Indeed, black reserve officers were even assigned to camps as medical officers and chaplains. In Pennsylvania, Captain Frederick Lyman Slade became the first black officer to command an all-black CCC camp when he assumed command duties at Camp MP-2 in Gettysburg in August of 1936 and by 1938, according to Speakman, all the military officers, including the medical officer as well as the educational advisor at the Gettysburg camp were African-American. But sadly, the ascendancy of minority representation came at the same time as the number of all-black camps was dwindling and black officers were placed in charge of only one other CCC camp before the program was disbanded.

The Cold Hard Truth In Black and White

Perhaps three vignettes of life in the CCC – literally illustrated - will serve to exemplify what black enrollees faced during their time in the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Arkansas Gazette Magazine of Sunday, February 18, 1934, included a very complimentary article entitled “Arkansas’s Negro CCC Camp.” Buried low in the first column of text, under the heading Late One Scene is the following:

Having been opened many months after the 38 CCC camps for whites began functioning, this CCC for Negroes got lost in the shuffle, as it were, so far as newspaper notice was concerned. Consequently Camp P-58 has hitherto received no publicity whatever in daily or weekly newspapers of Arkansas, possibly proving that both the whites and the Negroes in this camp, notwithstanding evident personal pride in achievements, posses rather rare modesty.

Given what we now know about the reluctance of Arkansas officials to enroll black enrollees into the CCC, is it any wonder this camp was “late on the scene”? Remember that by about July 1933, Arkansas had only enrolled 3 black enrollees. Yet the press easily smoothed over this chronological discrepancy.

Included in the illustrations for historian Robert Moore’s outstanding book The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona’s Rim Country is a detail of a group photo of Company 864 assigned to Camp F24-A at Arizona’s Bar X Ranch. The casual observer will be gratified to see that there are nine black enrollees in this integrated CCC company, but gratification turns to dismay when one realizes that the nine black enrollees are sitting well apart from the rest of the company. (Elsewhere, I have seen company photos in which a chalk outline has been made on the ground to direct the black enrollees exactly where to sit!)

A final sobering illustration of how the races were separated in the CCC can be found in the 1935 Official Annual of District ‘E’ Fourth Corps Area. Thumbing through this 232-page book is an enjoyable look at the history and work of the CCC in Louisiana and Mississippi and it all seems like a wonderful account of hard work and lives changed until you realize that the book itself is segregated into a white and black section, separated by a blank Certificate of Enrollment form. The histories of the all-black companies are, in keeping with the standards of the day, in the back of the book, separated from the histories of the all white companies by a blank certificate of enrollment form, included almost as an afterthought.

A Blurred Conclusion, Perhaps

With respect to the treatment of minorities in the CCC, Salmond wrote:

The outcome of the controversy over Negro enrolment is an obvious blot on the record of the CCC. The Negro never gained the measure of relief from the agency’s activities to which his economic privation entitled him. The clause in the basic act prohibiting discrimination was honored far more in the breach than in the observance…

On the other hand, Salmond notes:
To look at the place of the Negro in the CCC purely from the viewpoint of opportunities missed, or ideals compromised, is to neglect much of the positive achievement. The CCC opened up new vistas for most Negro enrollees. Certainly, they remained in the Corps far longer than white youths. As one Negro wrote: “as a job and an experience for a man who has no work, I can heartily recommend it.” In short, the CCC, despite its obvious failures, did fulfill at least some of its obligations toward unemployed American Negro youth.

So where does this leave us? Young black men were not enrolled in the CCC in an honest, direct proportion to their population in the United States, despite language in the legislation that was supposed to prevent discrimination, and once enrolled, blacks were often not treated with the same respect and dignity afforded their white counterparts in other camps and regions of the country. And yet, the occasional incidence of integrated CCC companies presaged by nearly a decade the emergence of integrated units in the military during the latter stages of World War II and eventually the full integration of the military later in Harry Truman’s administration and in time for the Korean War. No doubt, as Bob Audretsch points out in Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys, there is a true need for a detailed scholarly look at African Americans in the CCC, but for now, perhaps we might do well enough to view the issue of race relations as it pertains to the CCC not as a failure, but rather, a small success on the road to larger successes that came later and indeed, successes that continue today.

Article Copyright, Michael Smith 2011

I Sing The Intrepid CCC Enrollee

2011-01-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

It’s easy to think of CCC enrollees as wide-eyed teenagers, plucked from familiar surroundings and dumped in the wilds of the American west and certainly that general scenario is borne out in the many personal histories that we have at our disposal. On the other hand, the recorded exploits of the young men in the CCC simply cannot be overlooked. The primary record shows scores of examples of individual heroism and self-sacrifice, indeed at least one Carnegie medal went to a CCC enrollee for his courage in saving fellow enrollees during a barracks fire.

In all likelihood, for every instance of selflessness that made headlines, there were many others for which word never left the camp or local community in which the act took place. Buried deep in the text of a personal narrative published in 1941 is an account of an action by a single CCC enrollee that typifies this notion.

Albert W. Jernberg’s book My Brush Monkeys: An Army Officer’s Story of the CCC is the account of one army officer’s stint as commander of CCC camps in the latter years of the program. Jernberg’s text contains occasional offhand comments that hint at a sense of superiority over his young charges, and given the era and the circumstances, such an attitude may be somewhat understandable. By the same token, Jernberg’s frequent praise of the enrollees seems all the more sincere given what might be considered a cultural or class bias on the part of the young captain.

One event recounted in the book is the inspiration for this blog post so I’ll quote it at length here:

Toward evening, after the crews had come in, it was discovered that an enrollee was missing. Pete instituted a search. After an hour they found the youngster fighting a fire, all alone. He had come upon a small roadside fire, caused by some careless smoker, no doubt, and as the wind was blowing strong, he no sooner killed it in one quarter when it sprang up in another. He could have left and summoned aid – and in that time the fire would have gotten out of control. He had chosen to stick with it and fight alone. When they found him, stripped to the waist and covered with dirt, he was tired out – at the end of his rope. But he had stuck to the job. With the help of Pete and the truck driver the fire was put out and the tired enrollee brought in.

The incident revealed to me the character of the American boy; the American boy – who can’t be licked. There was a job to be done – and he had done it, sticking to it, the odds all against him. I decided then that the rest of the world could have bigger navies and bigger armies, but while we had kids like that we had something! How could you lick the kind of spirit that brush monkey showed fighting that fire by himself?

Odds are that enrollee’s one-man battle against a small wildfire went unreported in the local press. Perhaps there was mention of it in the camp paper, maybe Happy Days picked up the story, but that’s doubtful. Certainly his fellow enrollees were worried when he was overdue back at camp and no doubt he was fed a decent meal even if he arrived back in camp after the mess hall had closed. Maybe, just maybe Captain Jernberg gave him the next day off as a reward for hard work. We’ll probably just never know for sure, but rest assured there were thousands more like him in the CCC and maybe, just maybe, we owe our success in a world war to them.

Missing the Important Things During the Great Depression

2010-12-31T15:41:00.000-08:00

It surely was a time of longing, and a time of waiting, and a time of want. Then again, if the heart knows what the heart wants, the heart surely cannot know what it has never had, nor ever known of. Some children growing up during the Great Depression may have wanted for nothing because they never had anything in the first place. In the end, the only thing they knew they were lacking was the close, loving comfort of a parent who'd been sent away in pursuit of work.

As the door closes on this year, and a new year dawns, I’d like to finish off my 2010 posts with a simple remembrance of a little girl, in a tiny Colorado town in the 1930s. Some seventy years after the fact, she would recall laying at the foot of the bed in an upstairs bedroom, watching through the window, down a darkened street, waiting for a car to turn down the street because she knew it would be her beloved daddy, home from his job as a foreman in a faraway CCC camp. Their town was small and very little traffic moved through the streets so she could always be certain it was daddy when the car made that final turn down their street – it couldn’t be anyone else, but her daddy.

While he was away at camp, her daddy wrote a series of stories about The Whoppenhollar kids, who were modeled and named after his very own five children: Billy, Frank, the twins Jean and John and little Glen. He’d mail those stories home from CCC camps in places like Norwood, Delta, Gardner and San Isabel, Colorado.

One lucky Thanksgiving, her daddy was assigned to the CCC camp just a few miles down the road and the family was invited to attend the holiday dinner in camp. She would always remember the bounty that was spread across that camp table and recall that she’d never seen so much food in her young life. She would also remember visiting daddy in distant camps and she would recall the kindness of the camp officers. Thirty years later it would be remembered that through it all, daddy always managed to be home for the holidays.

It isn’t a stretch to say that the creation of the CCC in 1933 saved the Rutherford family. Bill Rutherford landed a job as a camp foreman during that first year and he worked for the CCC and for FERA until 1942. His work far from home meant food on the table, even if it did come at the expense of time spent close to his wife and children.

Now, as the calendar turns over to 2011, I look back with sadness at the fact that three of the five Whoppenhollar kids – John, Jean and Frank - have traveled on ahead, gone from this life and now joined with their mamma and daddy.

Sure, the heart knows what the heart wants and a small child always knows what they want most of all, which is for their parents to be close at hand.

Spotlight Site: The CCC in Kansas

2010-11-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

The Civilian Conservation Corps in Kansas is a relatively new CCC-related blog with (obviously) a focus on the work of the CCC in Kansas. To date there are twelve posted articles, each a work of merit, especially to anyone wanting information on the work of the CCC in Kansas.

I particularly like the posting about the artwork of Joseph A. Johnson and the article’s unanswered question, “what happened to Joseph Johnson?”

So much of the CCC story has been written and documented through the work of camps in the eastern and western U.S. with little notice given to the valuable work of the enrollees in America’s heartland. The Civilian Conservation Corps in Kansas includes a useful listing of CCC companies assigned to Kansas. Not surprisingly, the bulk of the focus seems to have been on soil erosion work.

Finally, the posting entitled “The Future of the CCC” is especially noteworthy because in it, an enrollee writes that perhaps one day, as old men, former enrollees will visit the public square and find erected there a statue of a CCC boy in honor of their accomplishments. And isn’t that exactly how it’s transpired? Amazing.

Mysteries and Conundrums, Indeed: CCC Camp Remnants in Your Neighborhood?

2010-10-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

So often, the locations of former CCC camps are lost to history or perhaps known only to a few local residents and historians. Sadly, when the last of the locals pass away, they may likely take with them the last bit of knowledge regarding where the CCC camp stood in their neighborhood. In the future, it will fall to local historians to document this information and the better the documentation, the better the preservation.

While doing a Google blog search for posts related to the Civilian Conservation Corps, I came across the blog Mysteries and Conundrums where there was posted an article entitled A Camp in the Wilderness: CCC Camp MP-4. Please read it; it’s as good a bit of CCC sleuthing as you’re likely to find anywhere on the net. The author provides not only an excellent bit of geo-referencing that includes a comparison of aerial photos from the 1930s and today, but also some fascinating background on the camp and its baseball diamond.

There is a similarly situated CCC camp in the Phoenix area (actually the site of two camps) and, unless you’re a CCC historian, a park ranger or perhaps an avid hiker, you’d likely miss the signs that tell you that a community of up to 400 young workers once lived in the area. The original flagpole base – likely constructed by enrollees from Texas – is still in place, but hidden by native vegetation and likely protected from vandalism as a result.

Which brings us to the potential downside of knowing about and revealing the locations of these old CCC camp sites. How much information is too much information? Fortunately, what little remains of Camp MP-4 is likely protected simply because it rests within the Fredricksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlfields Memorial, and likewise, the Phoenix CCC camp is inside a City of Phoenix Park, but what of the hundreds of CCC camps spread throughout the forests and fields of the United States. Fact is, most will continue to decay in silent anonymity, prey to the odd vandal or treasure hunter digging for artifacts, but mostly giving in to the unstoppable march of time and the ravages of mother nature.

All of which, leads me to another interesting topic: the work of the CCC at Civil War battlefield sites. Perhaps a post for next time.

Meantime, some snapshots of CCC camp remnants that I’ve visited….

Two views of what is left of Camp Custer in South Dakota...

A shot of the old dynamite bunker at the CCC camp site in Cumberland Falls near Corbin, Kentucky.....

Two stone pillars are almost all that remain of the two CCC camps that once operated at Phoenix South Mountain Park, but if you look closely when you're there, you might find the old flagpole stand, too!

It's anyone's guess what this concrete structure was used for at the old Lynx Creek CCC camp near Prescott, Arizona.

This is the floor of the old latrine and shower building at the former site of the Walnut Creek CCC camp, also near Prescott, Arizona.There are a number of remains at the site of the Schultz Pass CCC camp outside Flagstaff, Arizona. Look carefully and you'll see porcelain insulators and wires strung in the trees....

...and the concrete floors of a number of buildings including what was probably the mess hall and the officer's quarters.

But perhaps the neatest CCC camp remnant in Arizona is this "monument" built by CCC enrollees at the Indian Gardens camp near Payson, Arizona....

It's easily accessible, without so much as a five step walk off a major road, but it's only there for those who truly want to see it. If you whiz by at 50 miles per hour, you'll miss it.

Regimentation. Standardization. Professionalism.

2010-09-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

The first rules of sturdy workmanship: work from a good set of plans and have knowledgeable, dependable foremen.

While every CCC enrollee’s story is unique, there is a commonality of experience that runs though the entire program and listening to the stories or reading the personal accounts of former enrollees, one is stuck by common themes that run through the narrative of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Well, I’ve happened upon a set of photos that may help confirm the universality of the whole CCC experience, while at the same time perhaps speaking to the regimentation that was required to successfully shepherd hundreds of thousands of young men through a national work program, while producing construction improvements of lasting merit.

Consider this image from a collection of photos taken in Northern Arizona during the 1930s. This particular photo is of a wooden pole configuration at or near Grand Canyon National Park. I’ve no idea what the purpose of the twin pole arrangement is; perhaps it was part of a gate, or perhaps it was one in a series of telephone or telegraph poles strung through the juniper. Considered on its own, the photo is not especially remarkable and one wonders why the photographer even bothered with snapping the picture at all. I received the negative from the old National Association of CCC Alumni in response to a request for information about the CCC at Grand Canyon back in the early to mid-1990s. I made a print of the image and returned the negative to NACCCA, not giving this particular photo much thought.

Flash forward a few years to a hike I took with a fellow CCC historian and advocate in the area around Prescott, Arizona. While walking the grounds of the former CCC camp at Walnut Creek, heads down, strolling through knee-and waist high vegetation, we studied the remains of what once was a shower and latrine building and assorted other structures. But one particular camp remnant spoke to me more strongly than the others that day and it only took a second or two for me to realize I’d seen this sort of construction before.

This pole configuration, evidently set for stringing telephone or electrical wire between buildings in the camp, was nearly an exact twin to the pole installation in the picture from Grand Canyon. I snapped a couple of shots of what otherwise would have been a meaningless, nondescript wooden pole, knowing that somehow there was probably a lesson there somewhere.

I started off this piece with the notion that I’d find value in the commonality – the banality, perhaps – of CCC work and the CCC experience, thinking that to be a good thing. I still think the commonality of the CCC experience is a good thing; perhaps it sooths us some 75 years later, but in contemplating these two wooden poles in two separate regions of Arizona, I’m struck by a more valuable message, and that is the importance of good standard plans, a strong work ethic, high standards of workmanship and a cadre of experienced professional leaders (in the form of Park Service and Forest Service foremen). How else can you account for the fact that these two poles – hundreds of miles apart – form nearly a mirror image and that at least one of them is still standing more than 7 decades after it was placed in the ground? That’s a bit of commonality we could use today.

Spotlight Site: Texas Parks & Wildlife Department's "The Look of Nature"

2010-04-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

Our second Spotlight Site is entitled The Look of Nature: Designing Texas State Parks During the Great Depression. The site is operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and it’s an absolutely outstanding resource for learning about the work of the CCC in 29 Texas parks.

Visitors to the site can browse through an interactive Archive of CCC related images, view specific Park Profiles and work through an Interactive Program. There are even video clips and oral histories available at the site.

Texas in particular seems to have a special understanding of the importance of the CCC and its history, which at times seems a bit ironic given that many Texas enrollees were actually shipped out of state to perform CCC work in other states such as Colorado and Arizona. Regardless of how many may have been shipped to other states to work, the enrollees who labored on in Texas made an indelible imprint on the history of the state and their important work is nicely commemorated on this Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Site. Be sure to visit and save it as a favorite.

Revisionist History: Leave the CCC Out of It

2010-04-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

Would you tell these guys the CCC was a failure?

It is refreshing to see that the authors of the latest revisionist editorial to come out against the New Deal have wisely chosen to leave out any mention of the most popular and arguably the most successful New Deal program, the CCC.

Burton and Anita Folsom, who both hail from Hillsdale College, wrote earlier this month (ironically, on the anniversary of FDR’s death) that the New Deal did nothing to end the Great Depression. The editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal and you can read it Here.

Referring to the many “alphabet agencies” created during the New Deal, Folsom and Folsom state that “…the WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) failed to create sustainable jobs.” (I think someone working for the TVA today would beg to differ but that’s an argument they’ll have to make.) For my part I see it as a sign of progress that nowhere in the Folsom’s editorial is there any reference made to the CCC, the ECW or the Civilian Conservation Corps.

I’ve stated many times over that I am not an economist and I’m really not much of an historian and I don’t pretend to be. I’ve made a study of the CCC but when it comes to the larger impacts of the New Deal, I’ll defer to anyone with a reasonable argument. However when a revisionist historian props up their argument by making spurious claims about the CCC, they’d better have their facts straight. For this reason, I’m inclined to applaud the Folsom’s, at least for their having had the good sense to leave the CCC out of it.

I’m reminded of a revisionist rant that came out about five years ago from a gentleman by the name of Richard Ebeling – also associated with Hillsdale College at the time. Mr. Ebeling penned a piece entitled “When the Supreme Court Stopped Economic Fascism in America,” in which he made the following, stunning claim about the Civilian Conservation Corps:

“Much of the urban youth of America were rounded up and sent off to national forests for regimentation and mock military-style drilling as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

You can read the entire editorial here: Richard Ebeling's Article.

I won’t bother to expound on the many ways in which Mr. Ebeling’s claim is outlandish and stupid – he’s a professor of economics who should probably stick to economics – but I will offer some commentary on why I think the Folsom’s were right to leave the CCC out of their argument.

The CCC was not established to create sustainable jobs. If anything the CCC was geared toward removing single, teenaged men from the workforce in order to open up jobs for older men who were often unemployed heads of households. Furthermore, the CCC was created with the goal of improving the health and well being of its enrollees while providing them a chance to help their families through their own hard work (real self-esteem building, not the phony stuff sociologists spout about today). The money an enrollee sent home every month was plowed back into the economy in the form of rent payments and weekly grocery purchases. The CCC wasn’t a cure all and nobody with a lick of sense will attempt to argue that it was. By the same token, nobody with a lick of sense would reasonably claim the New Deal was a failure because of anything the CCC did, except perhaps with respect to its failure to racially integrate the camps.

I’m pleased that we can still discuss the New Deal on its merits and I’m pleased that supporters and detractors can all have their voices and opinions heard. I’m especially pleased that in the last five years or so, we’ve at least learned where the salient arguments are to be made and that the success or failure of a single New Deal program isn’t sufficient evidence for either side and that perhaps the CCC in its own right has risen above the discussion about whether or not the New Deal brought us out of the Great Depression.

To see an earlier editorial regarding revisionist works by Amity Shlaes (The Forgotten Man) and James Powell (FDR’s Folly) see my post entitled The Folly of Revisionist History.

Semper Patria Mea: A New Look For Camp Commanders

2010-04-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

We now know when the insignia worn by the camp staff was changed. But why?

In his work indexing the Arizona-related stories from Happy Days, Bob Audretsch has uncovered tons of interesting bits of information about the CCC, not just in Arizona and not just pertaining to the little, often overlooked references to camp life.

Larger developments and policies that shaped the program between 1933 and 1942 are widely known or at least vaguely understood but often the little facts behind the implementation of the policy are seemingly lost to history – buried deep in a stack of boxes in the National Archives perhaps.

Folks who’ve made a study of the CCC will have noticed that at some point in the lifespan of the program, the officers who ran the camps switched uniforms and their insignia changed from the familiar insignia of the U.S. military to an insignia created specially for the CCC. Bob Audretsch has located an article that spells out this change in the April 13, 1940 issue of Happy Days.

Under the headline "Eagle and Latin Phrase for Officers", the article reads:

Washington, D.C. – CCC camp officials are to get a new corps insignia to replace the regulation one now used on CCC uniform hats. Devised by the war Department on request of Director James J. McEntee, the insignia will resemble the drawing above. Specifications now are being drawn by the Army Quartermaster.
The design, somewhat similar to that of the Army, will be of jewelry bronze, 2 ½ inches high, with raised letters. The Latin quotation at the bottom, “Semper Patria Mea,” means “Always My Country.” It was chosen by Director McEntee. The design was executed by the heraldry office of the War Department.

The reason for the switch lies buried in a bureaucratic maneuver that took place in 1939. The War Department was never 100% on board with participation in the CCC program; they were a reluctant partner at first and eventually grew into a grudging participant, having recognized a number of benefits that could be derived from their participation in the CCC program. Nevertheless the relationship between CCC Director Fechner and the War Department was never a close one and by 1939 the War Department was taking steps to have itself absolved of responsibility for the camps.

A move by Congress in April 1939 only served to push the divorce along. On April 3rd Congress voted to give full disability benefits to Reserve officers assigned to active duty with the CCC; this was an expense the Roosevelt administration could not sanction and in response he decided to replace all Reserve officers assigned to CCC camps with civilians and the changeover was complete by the end of 1939. Nevertheless, the War Department remained in control of the camp administration, but the change in policy explains why the insignia of camp personnel was undergoing the changes that are outlined in the short piece from the April 13, 1940 issue of Happy Days. (I’ve drawn on John Salmond’s book The Civilian Conservation Corps: 1933-1942 for background on the change in policy.)

Who knows what other tidbits one is likely to turn up in poring over the old issues of Happy Days newspaper? Future researchers will certainly owe a dept of thanks to Bob Audretsch for his work in compiling the Arizona index for Happy Days. Perhaps other researchers would consider undertaking a similar indexing project for other states. Imagine if stories for all the states and territories were indexed for Happy Days. What a gold mine that source would become.

Nearly Lost: Photos of CCC Work at Interstate Park, Wisconsin

2009-12-05T19:08:00.001-08:00

The November-December issue of the Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy Journal ran a terrific article about the Intestate Park bison site and its connection to CCC history. Camp Interstate was established in order to use CCC labor to build roads, trails, shelter houses and other amenities at Interstate Park in northwestern Wisconsin. The archaeological work came about purely by happenstance.

In the summer of 1936, according to the article by Marlin Hawley, enrollees of Company 633 were digging a ditch to install a pipe. In the process of digging the ditch, the enrollees unearthed large animal bones and, before too long, having uncovered more and more bones, the camp superintendent decided to consult with zoologists at the University of Minnesota. The zoologists recognized the bones as those of some sort of bison, perhaps an extinct species.
Digging resumed and in short order a large hammered copper pike and two small spearheads were found amongst the buried bones at the Interstate Park site. According to Hawley, with the discovery of the of bison bones, the copper pike and the small spearheads “the CCC had unwittingly discovered one of the most enigmatic associations yet of artifacts and a vanished species.”

As it turns out, the name Interstate Park has a special significance to me all the way out here in the desert southwest. It seems that another bit of archaeological salvage work has resulted in the rescue of dozens of photos depicting CCC work at Interstate Park. It seems that the previous owner’s family was planning to dump them into the trash when Mr. Arley Ross, a member of NACCCA Chapter 44, saved them. Arley saved the whole lot of photos, along with a few postcards and it is only through his diligence several years ago that you are now able to see some of those images here.

In all the time I’ve had these photos, I never imagined that a significant archaeological discovery was also part of the CCC work at Interstate Park.

Perhaps the ditch in this picture is part of the work that ultimately resulted in the discovery of the bison bones. If you look carefully, you’ll see the sign that reads “Interstate Park Camp Grounds.” Working in the snow like this must have been tough business!

Here’s another image of enrollees digging a ditch.

Here’s a picture of the motor pool, where truck drivers appear to be shining up their trucks for inspection.

Here’s an image of three enrollees posing by a truck. The truck has “Camp Pattison” painted above the windshield. It’s unclear whether this was taken at the Interstate Park camp or somewhere else.

Here’s a picture of three fresh faced enrollees who look like they might be trying on their CCC work clothes for the first time.

Here’s a group of enrollees posing in the field with their foreman (the distinguished older looking gentleman in the sweater and coat).

Here’s a picture that seems to show that it wasn’t all hard work at Camp Interstate. The previous owner of the photos wrote “Homebrew” on this picture, so we can assume they’re not drinking milk. It’s fun to note that one fellow is drinking out of a gravy boat and the fellow on the far right is holding a pair of football or baseball cleats. The Hawley article points out that the bison excavation project was the largest archaeological project conducted by the CCC in Wisconsin and the assemblage of bison bones is the largest in the eastern U.S. It’s safe to say that the “forest army” did more than forest work.

A Time to Gather. A Time to Remember. A Time to Give Thanks.

2009-09-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

As the 2009 Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy national reunion draws closer I’m looking forward to the familiar faces I know that I’ll see when we gather in Denver. On the other hand I’m contemplating the likely absence of some of CCC veterans who I saw only just last year in Virginia.

We tend to think of those CCC boys as they were: 17 years old and wide-eyed as they sheepishly stepped off a train in some faraway town. We forget that those who survived their time in the CCC (most did), and the World War (a lot didn’t), and Korea and Vietnam (yes, they were still fighting then, too) grew up and grew old as they raised families of their own. Quietly, with little fanfare.

I think that for a long time, the National Association of CCC Alumni (NACCCA) and CCC Legacy reunions were just that: reunions. Recently, however, these gatherings are becoming something different as fewer and fewer CCC veterans are able to make the trip. I see a lot more sons and daughters and grandchildren at the national reunions now, and that’s wonderful. I hope the families always feel inspired to participate in CCC history if for no other reason than to fight for it, to preserve it and to stomp down the occasional naysayer who tries to tar the CCC using the same broad brush they use to denigrate the New Deal.

In time, our gatherings will be conferences or symposia, where academics discuss and debate the history and meaning of the CCC, but for now, the reunions have become something in between, not quite reunion, not quite conference. In some ways it’s the best of both worlds were it not for the declining numbers of CCC veterans in attendance. Perhaps some of us will look back wistfully – maybe on the advent of the 100th anniversary of the CCC – and say, “I remember the reunion of 2009 when we actually got to meet some CCC veterans in person!”

My point with all this of course is to simply remind you that the 2009 reunion, conference, symposium – whatever you’d like to call it – is fast approaching!

The 2009 Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy annual reunion is scheduled for October 8-11 in Littleton, Colorado. You can get additional details by visiting the CCC Legacy website HERE.

I sure hope to see you there!

Spotlight Site

2009-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Spotlight Site

Once again, it’s been far too long since I posted anything new here and for that I apologize. My thanks to those of you who may still be checking in from time to time in the hope that I’ll finally get on the ball and post something new.

As a way to hopefully get the ball rolling again, I’d like to point you to what I’m calling a Spotlight Site. A Spotlight Site is another website or blog that has interesting CCC-related content. Spotlight Sites will be a way for me to quickly post new content here and to hopefully point you toward other interesting CCC history.

Our inaugural Spotlight Site is an interesting article entitled Into the Woods: The First Year of the Civilian Conservation Corps on the National Archives website. This article gives a terrific account of the creation of the CCC and its evolution during the first year of operation. The first year of the CCC could really serve as something of a metaphor or model for the entire lifespan of the CCC, a program that always seemed to be in flux as leaders and officials shifted the focus and work of the CCC between 1933 and 1942.

CCC Legacy National Reunion Coming Soon!

And, before I close out this long overdue post, a reminder that the CCC Legacy National Reunion is scheduled for Denver, Colorado this coming October. This will be the first time that the national reunion has been held in the western U.S. since it was held in Phoenix in 2004. Here’s a link to the CCC Legacy website where you can get all the information.

2008-12-08T19:00:00.001-08:00

It's been far too long since the last post here at Forest Army. A few kind folks have emailed to ask if the blog has been closed down. My emphatic reply is "no." The business of running the local Civilian Conservation Corps alumni chapter and a number of activities associated with the 75th anniversary of the CCC have kept me occupied and without much free time to write for the blog. It's been a busy year with, among other things, the wonderful CCC Symposium at Grand Canyon, a CCC Appreciation Day in Payson, Arizona, a CCC Worker Statue dedication at Colossal Cave and the impending purchase and dedication of a second CCC Worker Statue for another Arizona location in early 2009.

My hope is to be able to get back into researching and writing about the CCC again so that I can place new content here at Forest Army and at the CCC Resource Page. At the very least I hope to post new and unusual photos as I find them and perhaps some personal narratives that we recently ran in the local CCC Legacy newsletter. Bear with me and check back from time to time. I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Grand Canyon CCC Exhibit In Its Final Weeks!

2008-10-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

(I must apologize. I've been remiss in my efforts here at Forest Army. What with running the local CCC Legacy Chapter and trying to take in a number of 75th anniversary events, I've neglected the blog. I hope to have more new content posted on a more regular basis for the remainder of 2008. Thank you for your patience.)

You would be hard pressed to find a more fitting location for a commemoration of the CCC than on the rim of our very own Grand Canyon and you’d be hard pressed to find a better event to mark the 75th anniversary than the CCC Symposium hosted by Grand Canyon National Park May 29th through June 1st. The Symposium marked the opening of an exhibition entitled “It Saved My Life: The Civilian Conservation Corps at Grand Canyon, 1933-1942.” The exhibit is the culmination of a cooperative effort between the National park Service and the Grand Canyon Association.

On opening day attendees were treated to a first look at the CCC exhibit in historic Kolb Studio. The space was packed and visitors young and old marveled at the exhibits and a handful of CCC veterans basked in the spotlight as folks sought them out to hear their story.

The following day attendees gathered in the auditorium of the Shrine of the Ages, enjoying a slate of distinguished researchers and historians. Among the presenters: Neil Maher of Rutgers University, author of Nature’s New Deal. Richard Melzer of the University of New Mexico, author of Coming of Age in the Great Depression and Renee Corona Kolvet, author of The Civilian Conservation Corps in Nevada. The slate of speakers also included National Park Service historian John Paige along with Arizona historians Mike Anderson, Peter Booth and Bill Collins. In all, no less than 15 historians, scholars and researchers gave presentations during the symposium.

For many, the highlight of the day’s presentations was a visit with three CCC enrollees, moderated by Dr. Melzer. Bill Millard, Jim Ware and Willis Canady shared their memories of living and working in the CCC and provided of glimpse of their post-CCC military experiences in the Navy and Marine Corps.

One historian has stated that the work of the CCC advanced park development by as much as 20 years during just the first two or three years of CCC operation, largely due to the massive labor pool provided by the program. As many as four CCC companies operated at Grand Canyon at any one time (on both rims and at the bottom of the canyon) and their list of accomplishments includes structures, trail building, infrastructure improvements like the stone wall in South Rim Village, trail shelters and the trans-canyon telephone line. Again, it’s little wonder that South Rim made such a fitting and majestic setting for such an event; the place fairly oozes CCC history!

We’re all especially indebted to the folks who worked so hard to make this event come together and for their effort in recognizing the important role of the CCC in our nation’s history. Particular thanks goes to the exhibit committee: Mike Anderson, Bob Audretsch, Pam Cox, Pam Frazier and James Schenck.

Alas, the Symposium events proved far too fleeting as attendees went their separate ways, but the exhibit will continue at historic Kolb Studio until October 19th. If you are at all able to do so, please make the trip to see the exhibit; you’ll be glad you did!

(Photos courtesy of the National Park Service and NPS Staff. Thank you.)

Joseph Speakman's Balanced Appraisal of the CCC

2008-04-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

At Work in Penn's Woods: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Pennsylvania

By Joseph M. Speakman

Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006

I don’t know that you’ll find a more balanced appraisal of the CCC than this book; it’s an elegant piece of scholarship. Joseph Speakman manages to hit all the high notes while reminding us that the CCC was, after all, a government program, and as such, it was far from perfect.

Speakman comes by his interest in the CCC naturally – like many of us his father gained from the program as a young man and the stories told seem to have ignited the fire of interest. That said, Speakman has gone into the task of scholarship with his eyes open and he seems to have remained so to the end. The result is a study of the CCC that is both interesting and informative without a whiff of an agenda.

Each of us remembers things a certain way, for a particular reason, even if we don’t in fact realize we are doing so. The experiences of Speakman’s father serve as something of an allegory for the way we have chosen to recall the CCC and its impact on this nation and the young men who rose from being the Great Depression generation to become The Greatest Generation. In the preface to Penn’s Woods, Speakman recounts that his father’s stories of having gained twenty pounds of muscle in the CCC were offset somewhat by the fact that his CCC discharge indicated he gained just nine pounds during his enrollment in the CCC.

With this seemingly inconsequential statement, Speakman sets up something of an overarching metaphor for his entire account of the work of the CCC in Pennsylvania. Specifically this: that while we may often gravitate toward the positive and uplifting aspects of the CCC, there are underlying truths that remain unpleasant at times. The CCC did not offer the same opportunities to young men of all races. The CCC occasionally squandered resources. The CCC did attempt to be too many things to too many people over the course of its lifetime. Speakman has done a terrific job of documenting these shortcomings, while avoiding the trap of revisionist polemics.

At Work In Penn’s Woods is well documented with a substantial list of sources and notes. Speakman makes a point of apologizing early on for his use of statistical data, but he weaves the statistical material so seamlessly through the narrative that it easily becomes another useful part of the story. This book will easily find a place in the canon of CCC literature and should be on the reading list of anyone who is interested in the New Deal or the CCC.

To visit the Pennsylvania University Press web page for At Work in Penn’s Woods, go here:

http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02876-9.html

The Two Faces of Camp F-33-A, Mayer, Arizona

2008-04-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

IMAGE: Camp F-33-A, Mayer, Arizona Circa 1939

After the dissolution of the CCC in 1942, former CCC camps were used for a number of purposes, in many cases being dismantled and moved to other sites for use by the military. Some camps were used to confine Axis prisoners of war, while others were used to house conscientious objectors who, due to religious beliefs, chose not to enter the military, opting instead to work in camps to perform useful, non-war related work. One of the more unfortunate uses of former CCC camps was as internment centers for the relocation of Japanese-Americans.

Camp F-33-A was established in Mayer, Arizona in the fall of 1933 and CCC companies alternated between the Mayer camp and other camps over time. Work done by CCC enrollees at the Mayer camp included twig blight control, trail construction, telephone line construction, bridge building, rodent control and erosion control.

Camp F-33-A served very briefly as a temporary relocation camp for Japanese-Americans who had been relocated from southern Arizona. Nothing remains of the camp today; the area has been swallowed up by homes and a small business area alongside the road through town. A Circle K convenience store dominates the area where once stood the camp. According to a National Park Service website, the Mayer camp was occupied for a shorter length of time than any relocation camp, with the internees being moved to the Poston Relocation Center less than a month after arriving at the Mayer camp.

During its life as a CCC camp, F-33-A was an integrated camp, with enrollees from a mixture of racial groups. Integrated camps were a rarity during the CCC’s lifetime and given the camps later use, its diverse racial make up in the 1930s is ironic.

To see the National Park Service website detailing the use of the Mayer CCC camp as a temporary internment camp for Japanese-Americans, visit this website:
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/anthropology74/ce16c.htm

Today you would never know that a CCC camp once stood along this stretch of Arizona highway, but if it were still standing, camp F-33-A would occupy the very middle of this picture.

Happy Birthday C.C.C.!!

2008-03-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today, when a single government agency can’t conduct its business efficiently, let’s remember back 75 years when four federal agencies provided meaningful work and training to millions of young men over the course of nearly a decade.

Seventy-five years ago today, a conservation army was mustered for duty in the forests, fields and parks of this country to begin what would ultimately be more than nine years of continuous work. The conservation army that undertook this peaceful occupation was Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps- the CCC. Among the results here in Arizona: trail systems in Grand Canyon, visitor amenities in South Mountain and Papago Parks, improvements at Colossal Cave and forestry improvements in all of our national forests. Nationally, the work of the CCC stretches from Acadia in Maine to Yellowstone in Wyoming, from Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to La Purisima in California. In fiscal year 1937 alone the CCC built a total of 2,476 vehicle bridges, 11,559 miles of truck trails and they strung over 10,000 miles of telephone and power lines, largely to the benefit of our National Forests and National Parks. Multiplied over 9 years, the numbers become almost incomprehensible and the fact that we continue to derive benefit from this work three-quarters of a century later is unfathomable in our modern throwaway society.

In a cooperative effort not seen before or since, the Departments of War, Labor, Agriculture, and the Interior, worked together to select suitable enrollees, provide medical checks and inoculations, issue supplies and work clothes and arrange transportation to the many camps scattered throughout the United States and its territories. The CCC was not run by the military. The camps – usually home to about 200 enrollees – were placed under the command of a reserve military officer, but military discipline was prohibited and enrollees were only under the control of the commanding officer during their hours in camp. In fact, many of the reserve officers called up to run the camps were themselves unemployed because of the national economic crisis and thus, they had a good deal more in common with the enrollees than some historians have been inclined to point out. During the workday, enrollees labored and learned under the watchful eye of foremen and supervisors from the technical services such as the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation and the Soil Conservation Service.

Ultimately, some 3 million young men passed through the ranks of the CCC between 1933 and 1942. Enrollees were housed, clothed, fed and paid $30 a month, of which as much as $25 was sent home to needy family members; after all, what good was $30 in the pocket of a lad living in a forest camp? The economy needed dollars to circulate and the monthly CCC allotments helped make that happen. Furthermore, the establishment of a CCC camp typically meant an additional $5,000 in monthly expenditures in the local marketplace because the camps bought many supplies locally, which created jobs in communities nationwide.

The work and history of the Civilian Conservation Corps is largely forgotten. Reinvigorated enrollees lay down their shovels to take up the fight against fascism. The “boys” of the CCC became the men of Corregidor, Midway, Anzio and Omaha Beach. Vocational skills gained in the CCC camps were put to use in our factories building tanks and airplanes. Nearly to a man, former CCC enrollees will tell you that the CCC was the best thing that ever happened to them, but as a nation we tend to remember more about the World War they fought between 1942 and 1945, than we do the quieter time from 1933 to 1942 when our nation was home to the Civilian Conservation Corps and its peaceful occupation.

In honor of this special day, here are some interesting CCC and New Deal anniversary links that have appeared on Google and elsewhere recently:

A nice remembrance appeared in this morning's online edition of the Deseret News out of Salt Lake City.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695266070,00.html

An interesting page from channel 8 in Austin, Texas. Included on the page is a link to a video clip. I don’t think any state beats Texas for its consistent, enthusiastic recognition of the work of the CCC
http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=204161

A nifty article that ran in USA Today a few days back. National coverage like this is rare and usually comes out only during a significant milestone event or anniversary, but it’s still nice to see the coverage and some recognizable faces and names among those being interviewed.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-18-ccc75th_N.htm

Here’s a blog post from the California State Parks, announcing a special 75th anniversary exhibit to run at the state capitol. Also noted are observances at parks around the state.
http://yubanet.com/regional/75th-Anniversary-of-CCC---Civilian-Conservation-Corps.php

The CCC alumni and preservation group is known as CCC Legacy. CCC Legacy is the result of a merger between the National Association of CCC Alumni and the Camp Roosevelt Legacy Foundation. CCC Legacy has headquarters at both Jefferson Barracks, Missouri and Edinburg, Virginia. On the organization’s web page you’ll find links to events that are planned for the 75th anniversary as well as links to local CCC alumni newsletters and websites.
http://ccclegacy.org/

The original website for the National Association of CCC Alumni is still up as well. There is a very useful list of camps organized by state, as well as a selection of CCC items like caps and T-shirts available for purchase. You can visit that site here:
http://www.cccalumni.org/

For an example of the ill-informed sort of information that gets posted and published about the Civilian Conservation Corps, check out this blog, if you've got two minutes to waste. (I hope to make a post about this sort of ignorance some time in the future.)

http://aninconvenientdocument.blogspot.com/2008/03/dailys-march-31st-2008.html

The Birth of the Civilian Conservation Corps

2008-03-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

March 31, 2008 will mark the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Today, in an era when individual government agencies seem to have difficulty conducting the people's business, it should astound us to know that the CCC brought together the efforts of multiple federal agencies for a nearly decade-long effort that successfully employed and trained some 3 million young men as our nation stood on the cusp of war. Perhaps more amazing is the fact that, while the embryonic notions of melding work relief and conservation were in Franklin Roosevelt's mind well before he was elected president, the legislation to create the CCC passed through Congress in just 18 days.

Here then is a timeline of significant events connected to the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Much of this information is from John Salmond's incredible book on the Civilian Conservation Corps.

1910
Franklin Delano Roosevelt takes over the family estate at Hyde Park and immediately begins a reforestation effort.

1931
Roosevelt sponsors an amendment to the New York constitution giving the state government authority to acquire and reforest marginal lands with funds created from the sale of bonds.

1932
July 2
In accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Roosevelt proclaims that he has, “a very definite program for providing employment…,” through the establishment of a conservation program.

1933
January
James Couzens, a Republican senator from Michigan fails in his attempt to pass a Senate bill authorizing the use of the Army for unemployment relief. Though a failed effort, Couzens’ measure introduces the concept of military involvement in relief efforts.

March 9
Meeting with advisors, including the Secretaries of the interior, agriculture, and war FDR diagrams his plan to put 500,000 men to work on conservation-related projects. He asks Colonel Kyle Rucker, Army judge advocate-general, and Edward Finney, the solicitor of the Department of the Interior to prepare draft legislation, requesting they complete the task by days end. Roosevelt is given a draft document at 9 that evening and further discussion is conducted immediately.

March 14
Roosevelt confides to Raymond Moley, a member of his so-called “brain trust” that he intends to move forward with his plan to create a conservation oriented work relief program. Moley suggests a deliberate approach. Heeding Moley’s advice, Roosevelt sends a memorandum to the secretaries of war, interior, labor and agriculture, asking them to form “an informal committee of the Cabinet to co-ordinate the plans for the proposed Civilian Conservation Corps.”

March 15
At the request of President Roosevelt, the secretaries of war, interior, agriculture and labor meet to discuss the creation of a “civilian conservation corps.” In this initial meeting, the secretaries considered a number of aspects of the proposed conservation work program, including their recommendation that the work be strictly limited, ideally to forestry and soil erosion projects and not toward public works projects, so as not to compete with employers in the open market.

At his third press conference, held the same day his “informal committee” meets, Roosevelt expounds on the proposed forestry work program, including the proposed wage of $1 a day. Roosevelt explains that swift action on the matter is a foregone conclusion.

March 21
Roosevelt’s message concerning the “Relief of Unemployment” is sent to the Congress. In this message Roosevelt outlined a three-pronged attack on the problem, with the first effort being, “the enrollment of workers now by the Federal Government for such public employment as can be quickly started and will not interfere with the demand for, or the proper standards of, normal employment.”

More specifically, Roosevelt uttered what may be the most often quoted phrase in connection with the Civilian Conservation Corps:
"I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. I estimate that 250,000 men can be given temporary employment by early summer if you give me authority to proceed within two weeks."
Roosevelt went on to state:
"More important will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans who are walking the streets and receiving private or public relief would infinitely prefer to work. We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings."

Following the President’s message at bill entitled “The Relief of Unemployment Through the Performance of Useful Public Work and for other Purposes” was introduced into both the Senate and the House.

Labor leaders quickly condemn the plan for its wage and recruitment provisions and because of the involvement of the Army.

March 22
Roosevelt calls members of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, and the House Committee on Labor to the White House where he explains his CCC plan in more detail and attempts to allay the fears expressed by organized labor and members of the Socialist party.

March 23-24
Joint Senate and House hearings begin in an atmosphere of cooperation possibly due to Roosevelt’s evening meeting at the White House the night before. Presiding over the hearings is Senator David I. Walsh, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. Walsh prods the proceedings forward in an effort to adhere to Roosevelt’s stated desire.

Among those testifying at the Joint hearing is Chief forester Major Stuart who testified at length regarding the need for forest workers. Stuart also makes a successful bid to broaden the program’s scope of work to include not just national forests but also state and private forests. Without such a change, Stuart argues, there will have to be a transfer of men from east of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountain region where 95 percent of the public domain is situated. (With 70 percent of the unemployment located east of the Mississippi, it didn’t make sense to transport men westward to give them work.)

Stuart is also quizzed on the issue of paying enrollees $1 a day when the regular wage for forestry workers runs in the neighborhood of $3 a day. Stuart stresses the program’s function as a relief measure and explains that skilled $3 a day workers could serve as supervisor’s and foremen, with a clear distinction between the two wage scales.

Secretary of Labor, Miss Frances Perkins also stresses the programs aim of work relief when questioned about the proposed $1 a day wage for enrollees. She explains that most of the workers are expected to be young, single men and that the CCC should not be viewed “in the sense of providing real wage-producing employment.”

Army chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur testifies that there will be “no military training whatsoever,” with the military restricting its participation to gathering the men selected by the Department of Labor, outfitting the men, giving the men a physical examination and physical conditioning before transporting them to their camps where they would be turned over to the Department of Agriculture.

The next witness is William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor. Green attacks the program on three points: regimentation of labor, low wages and funding. To Green the mandatory allotment and the involvement of the military “smacked of fascism, Hitlerism, of a form of Sovietism…” Green argues that the CCC wage of $1 a day would establish that as the national wage for workers. Other labor representatives also testify and the hearing adjourns on a far less optimistic note than it convened.

March 27
An amended S. 598 is reintroduced into the Senate. In response to the objections raised by labor, it was agreed that the focus should be on the two aspects of the program for which there were no objections from any side: the chance to perform forestry work as a means of relieving unemployment and the use of unobligated funds to pay for the program. The re-submitted bill merely authorized the President to work in the public domain, perform reforestation and employ unemployed citizens to perform the work.

In the House opposition to the bill is more robust and broad based. Despite indications from labor leaders that the $30 monthly wage would not be contested, an effort was launched to set the pay scale at $50 a month for single enrollees and $80 a month for married enrollees.

March 28
The senate bill is passed by voice vote over dwindling opposition, with minor amendments and in part because of the continuing efforts of Senator Walsh.

March 29
The House considers the bill amended and passed by the Senate on March 28th. Representative Connery stood to protest the proposed wage and dramatically announced that once again, labor leaders had again changed their position and now opposed the bill. Still another faction stood to argue that the measure imparted nearly dictatorial powers on the president and would lead a majority of the population believing that “it is the Government’s duty to put them on the pay roll.”

Nevertheless, the intent of the bill receives wide support in the House, with many recognizing it as focusing on relief of unemployment, not wage control. Representative Thomas G. Cochran of Missouri, stated that he disliked many of Roosevelt’s proposals, but admitting that “…I do like the way the President of the U.S. is trying to meet this emergency…”

Like Senator Walsh in the senate, Representative Robert Ramspeck, a Democrat from Georgia, carries the torch for the bill in the House, emphasizing the emergency nature of the legislation and its important relief function.

Connery’s proposal to set the monthly wage at $50 fails, along with a last minute effort by Republicans to delay proceedings. Only three amendments are adopted, including that proposed by Representative Oscar De Priest, a Republican from Illinois and the sole African-American Congressman. De Priest proposed “that no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, or creed…under the provisions of this Act.”

The bill is passed by a voice vote.

March 30
The Senate accepts the House amendments to the bill and it is forwarded to the President.

March 31
President Roosevelt signs into law the legislation creating the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) program and the Civilian Conservation Corps is born.

April 17
The first CCC camp is established in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia.

In an article titled “Rizzo Goes To Work,” Time magazine reports that a week earlier, 19 year old Fiore Rizzo reported to the Army Building in downtown Manhattan and reported for duty as the first CCC enrollee. The CCC is off and running!

Important CCC Anniversary Event Announced!

2008-01-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

I am indebted to Bob Audretsch at Grand Canyon National Park for sharing an important press release regarding what will likely prove to be a very interesting Civilian Conservation Corps anniversary event later this year at Grand Canyon’s South Rim.

Like many of the forests and parks where the CCC worked, Grand Canyon National Park existed before the New Deal, and the advent of the CCC, but the park is far different today than it would have been were it not for the work of the CCC.

Here is the press release:

Grand Canyon Celebrates CCC Anniversary

On March 31, 1933 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed legislation creating the Civilian Conservation Corps and on May 29 the first CCC boys arrived at the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon Association and Grand Canyon National Park will mark this seventy-fifth anniversary with an exhibit and a symposium titled “Saving the Park and Saving the Boys, the CCC at Grand Canyon, 1933-1942.” The exhibit, May 31-October 31, will be at South Rim Village Kolb Studio and free and open to the public. A formal opening reception will take place the evening of May 30. The exhibit will start with a symposium featuring scholars, a panel of CCC enrollees, and history walks, May 31 and June 1. Registration for the symposium will begin January 31 by going to the parks website: http://www.nps.gov/grca/historyculture/ccc.htm

Exhibit goers will learn about the despair of the Great Depression, the fear of a possible ‘lost generation’ of young men and the feeling of hope that the CCC brought to poor unemployed young men and their families. Many historic photographs and artifacts, never before viewed by the public, will be on display. Attendees will learn about the many things the CCC accomplished at the Grand Canyon and the positive changes it brought to CCC boys and their families.

The exhibit has been in the planning stages for over two years and is funded by donations from the Grand Canyon Association. Exhibit team members include Bob Audretsch, James Schenck, Pam Frazier, Pam Cox and Michael Anderson. For more information contact Audretsch at bob_audretsch@nps.gov or 928-638-7834.

National Park Service historian John Paige said the CCC advanced park development 10-20 years during the program’s first two years. Some have called the 1930s the ‘golden years’ of the park service in large part due to the almost unlimited labor pool provided by the CCC. Grand Canyon National Park had as many as four companies with 200 boys each working simultaneously. Ultimately seven different companies worked at Grand Canyon: 818, 819, 847, 2543, 2833, 3318 and 4814. The most significant CCC accomplishments at Grand Canyon include trail building, the South Rim Community Building, the beautiful stone wall in the Village, the trans canyon telephone line and trail shelters.

C.C.C. Side Camps

2007-12-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

Life in a Civilian Conservation Corps side camp could be rustic to say the least. In this post we'll take a brief look at how the side camps were set up.

While most CCC camps were situated close to the main project site where the enrollees worked, there were also many, many work sites in remote places that needed the attention of CCC workers. It simply wasn’t practical to transport enrollees over miles and miles of remote roads to these work sites, and then return to camp at the end of the workday. To resolve this dilemma, smaller camps known as “spike camps,” “side camps,” or “fly camps” were established. But no matter what they were called, those small non-permanent camps established well away from larger CCC camps, were responsible for an astonishing amount of useful work that otherwise would not have been possible.

Side camps were initially an area of dispute. The technical services wanted the side camps placed under their control, an arrangement that both the Army and director Fechner opposed. Since the operation of the main camps was under their control, the Army reasoned that it should also be in charge of the side camps, with the technical services taking charge of the enrollees during normal work hours.

In July1933, President Roosevelt approved the establishment of side camps and he placed them under the control of the technical agencies with the requirement that not more than 10 percent of the company strength be assigned to them. One reason for Roosevelt’s decision may have been that, to place an army officer in each side camp would have stretched the military organization too thin, leading to a decline in management and leadership throughout the program. Despite their being exempt from direct Army control, there were guidelines on the layout of the side camps. For example, a Forest Service plan for a 25-man camp provided for five canvas tents, each 16 by 16 feet to house the enrollees. Three tents measuring 9 by 9 feet provided shelter for supervisory staff. The mess unit operated out of a tent measuring 19 by 21 feet and additional shelters were provided for the kitchen, the cook, the infirmary and office, as well as latrine and shower facilities. Even in these smaller camps, the provision was always made for a flagpole, usually placed in a central location in the camp area.

Forest Service plans also provided guidelines for a mobile 25-man camp, which consisted of 12 two-man shelter tents, three staff tents, one cook tent and a tent to serve as a combination mess and kitchen. Despite the lack of Army involvement, life in a mobile camp may have been quite similar to life in an infantry platoon. Each man was to be supplied with an infantry pack, canteen and mess kit. In the mobile configuration, the need for a kitchen unit could be eliminated if each enrollee carried five days of rations with him and the crew returned to base camp on weekends to re-provision.

The Night Before Christmas (with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

2007-11-21T11:40:00.000-08:00

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the camp
The captain went strolling with a kerosene lamp.
The tools were all hung in the tool shop with care,
In hopes that Kris Kringle soon would be there.
With the enrollees nestled all snug in their bunks,
The Captain went prowling for raccoons and skunks.
The foremen in wool socks, the LEMs in their shorts,
Were snoring away in a chorus of snorts.

When out by the flagpole there arose such a noise
The captain was worried it might wake his boys.
Away to the mess hall he flew like a flash,
Thinking some dog robber was sampling the hash.
The moonlight on a forest covered in snow
Gave luster of midday to the camp below
When, what to the captain’s tired eyes should appear,
But a shiny stake bed truck rolling up in high gear!

With a little old driver, whose bells gave a jingle,
The captain knew right away it must be Kris Kringle
Smoother than silk that little REO ran
And Old Kris gave a chuckle and waved his gloved hand.
The captain couldn’t be sure, but gazing from afar,
Old Kris Kringle looked a bit like FDR.
Kris pulled the truck up to the mess hall in a slide
Then bounded up the stairs and went inside.

The captain rushed up to peek though the door
Naturally inquisitive, wanting to see more.
Kris didn’t make a sound but kept his eye on the ball,
As he expertly spruced up the camp mess hall.
Red garlands and green streamers he tacked up with care,
Knowing that hungry peavies soon would be there.

A huge holiday feast he prepared in a flash,
Turkey and dressing with no sign of hash!
And over it all Kris spoke a whispered prayer
For the families back home whose boys wouldn’t be there.
“Keep them safe and happy,” Kris whispered with a sigh
And with a gloved hand, wiped a tear from his eye.
Then, having completed an honest night’s work,
Kris turned toward the mess hall door with a jerk.

Then back to the little work truck he dashed
And lifting the clutch, the gas pedal he mashed.
To see that truck speed through camp was a sight,
But the captain knew it would be a busy night.
Kris Kringle had to hustle and be on his way
To visit all the CCC camps before light of day.
But the captain heard Kris exclaim with a flash of headlights,
“Merry Christmas CCC Boys and to all a good night!”

Holidays In The C.C.C.

2007-11-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

Typically, any enrollee who had earned the privilege and who wanted to would be allowed to go home for the holidays if time permitted and distances were not too great. However, between 1933 and 1942 any Civilian Conservation Corps enrollee or camp supervisor who could not get leave found himself away from home during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. To ease the pain of separation from family and loved-ones, most C.C.C. camps prepared special dinners for Thanksgiving and Christmas and held Christmas parties, often “adopting” local children and inviting residents to visit the camps.

A CCC mess hall decorated for a holiday meal.

Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees performed no work on Thanksgiving and Christmas, beyond the duties required to keep the camp running and a special holiday meal would be prepared. Often special menus would be printed describing the day’s meal, occasionally noting that cigars or cigarettes would be available following the meal. Additionally, a Company roster would sometimes be printed in the menu, to become a souvenir of an enrollee’s time in the C.C.C.

The CCC at South Rim, Grand Canyon

2007-11-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

The first contingent of Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees arrived at Grand Canyon National Park on May 29, 1933 and for the full lifespan of the CCC, Grand Canyon was home to CCC workers until the program was disbanded in 1942. Civilian Conservation Corps companies 818, 819, 847 and 2833 worked at Grand Canyon in addition to rotating to Phoenix and Tucson to perform work there during the winter months.

Grand Canyon National Park existed prior to the creation of the CCC, however with the abundant manpower made available through the CCC, Grand Canyon gained many infrastructure improvements that it might not otherwise have received. Inevitably, at a park so vast, the casual observer overlooks most of the CCC built improvements, while other improvements require a strenuous hike in order to be viewed and enjoyed. Thankfully, the National Park Service has created a short walking tour that highlights a number of CCC built projects in the area of Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim. What follows is taken largely from the text of the walking tour, with additional information added for clarification or for human interest. The color photos were all taken in November 2007.

The walking tour of CCC sites in Grand Canyon Village begins with the Community Building, just northeast of Parking Lot E. The Community Building was funded with Public Works Administration funds and built with CCC and park labor between 1934 and 1935. The building, which replaced a structure that burned down in 1933, has served as a public library, hosted plays and meetings and served as a theatre for showing movies.

The next stop on the walking tour is a culvert, located near the intersection of Village Loop and Center Road. The Park Service reports that the exact date of construction of this culvert is unknown but it is believed to be a CCC built structure. Close inspection of the culvert – actually two culverts and stone headwalls – shows that the pipes may have been extended in the process of widening Village Loop at some later date. Evidence of the stone ditch lining is still visible downstream of the culvert outlets. The Park Service literature indicates that this culvert has required little maintenance over its life span; a tribute to the beneficial work of the boys in the CCC.

If you proceed along Village Loop a few hundred feet and keep looking to the left, you will see a wooden bridge that leads across a drainage system toward the railroad tracks. The CCC built two wooden bridges across the wash in this area, according to the Park Service walking tour literature. The bridge that remains was completed in 1937. Close inspection will reveal that steel I-beams have been put in place under each side of the bridge; indeed, the timbers were replaced recently when the bridge became unsafe in the 1980s. The current bridge is a careful reproduction, built with the aid of historic photographs.

If you cross Village Loop and proceed in an easterly direction you’ll walk past the former park hospital, which is now home to the Grand Canyon Association. Continue walking and you’ll arrive at the intersection of Village Loop and Navajo Street where you’ll see a rock wall that serves as an entryway to the residential area further up Navajo Street. These rock pillars and walls were constructed in 1934 as a visual barrier between the public area of the park and the residential area on Navajo Street. While documentary proof is lacking, it is believed that the CCC built this rock wall. The Park Service tour brochure notes that the recessed cement between the stones was a common CCC technique and the extensive growth of lichens on the stone gives a clue to the age of the rock wall.

From the intersection of Village Loop and Navajo Street, the route of the walking tour proceeds across the railroad tracks, past the train station and up the steps leading to the historic El Tovar hotel. At this point the visitor is on the flat crest of ground immediately adjacent to the south rim of the canyon and if they proceed to the east along the rim to a point between Hopi House and Verkamps Curios they will see a bench carved out of a huge log. The CCC constructed log benches in conjunction with their work refurbishing the rock wall along the rim. It is believe that this massive bench was created in 1934 or 1935, though no documentation exists to provide proof. It seems ironic that, while the CCC boys seldom left visible markings to identify their work, countless Grand Canyon visitors have seen fit to carve their names into this historic log bench, seemingly in an effort to make their own short visit somehow more meaningful.

Proceed from the log bench in a westerly direction (to your left as you face the canyon) less than 100 feet to the rock wall opposite Hopi House. The walking tour notes indicate that in 1934 and 1935 the CCC completely rebuilt the rock wall along the South Rim from Verkamps Curios to Lookout Studio, replacing a poorly constructed and dilapidated dry wall and a section of wooden fence. The CCC standardized the dimension to 27 inches high and 18 inches wide, with guardrails added in some places. It is worth pointing out that in some places the workers would have been in quite a precarious position as they worked on the wall, but to their credit, no major accidents or injuries were reported as a result of CCC work at Grand Canyon’s South Rim. (Indeed, the only CCC fatalities reported at Grand Canyon were the result of off-duty mishaps that involved a fall from the south rim and a drowning in the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon.)

Proceeding along the rim to the west you’ll come to a flagpole at what is called North Rim View. From here you’ll see – barely – the North Rim’s Grand Canyon Lodge. Company 818 worked on the North Rim in the summers, building structures, fences, fighting forest fires and building roads. During the winter months the men were moved to the bottom of the canyon to areas like Phantom Ranch. Phantom Ranch’s Bright Angel Campground was built by the CCC, as were a number of trails including Ribbon Falls Trail and the nine-mile Clear Creek Trail. CCC enrollees also constructed the Colorado River Trail from 1933 to 1936 and while it is only two miles long, it is reportedly the most difficult and hazardous trail ever constructed in the canyon.

Continue walking westerly to a point in front of Kachina Lodge and you will find a plaque that has been affixed to the top of the stone wall. This plaque commemorates the transcanyon telephone line installed by the CCC. Prior to construction of this transcanyon line, communication between the North and South Rims was unreliable. In order to remedy the situation in 1934, a group of CCC enrollees started from each side of the canyon, working their way towards each other, all the while stringing telephone line on metal poles, down steep cliffs and though narrow gullies, often in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees! When the transcanyon telephone line was completed in 1935 it stretched from the North Rim along North Kaibab Trail to Cottonwood Camp and Phantom Ranch, then across the Colorado River to a spur line on the south Kaibab Trail at a point known as “The Tipoff.” The main line continued along Bright Angel Trail connecting Phantom Ranch to Indian Garden, and then to the South Rim developed area via the rest houses along the trail. The line was used so much that another circuit was added in 1938-1939. The Park Service guide reports that the line included 592 metal poles and, because cell phones do not work with in the canyon, parts of the original telephone line are still in use today. If you look carefully down the slope beyond the plaque on the stone wall, you will see two or more of the metal poles for the telephone line.

Continue walking west past the Thunderbird Lodge, Bright Angel Lodge and Lookout Studio to historic Kolb Studio. In 1936 the CCC built the stairs that lead up the slope toward the mule corral. The stairs were originally of all stone construction without handrails, however the stone treads have been replaced with concrete steps and for safety reasons, a hand rail in now in place. Proceed up these steps and walk to your right, a few hundred feet to the stone and pipe mule corral and the trailhead of Bright Angel Trail.

The Park Service walking tour points out that the Bright Angel Trail was used by American Indians long before the first pioneers arrived in the 1880s. The trail was transferred to the National Park Service in 1928, some five years before the creation of the CCC. The CCC undertook major reconstruction of the trail, completing the work in 1939. Originally the trail was only two to three feet wide in places. Using pick, shovel, drill and dynamite, the boys of the CCC reconstructed and rerouted the trail to its current width of four to six feet. Additionally, the CCC built rustic stone and timber shelters long the trail.

When we consider the remote, rugged beauty of Grand Canyon today, we should also think back to a time when the area was even more remote, some 75 years ago when roads weren’t paved and helicopters hadn’t been invented. The 1930s were a time when any injury in the canyon could mean death and work was undertaken with hand tools and sheer muscle power. Today it’s an easy walk along the rim trail, with a number of opportunities to buy food and drink, and ample places to stop and rest. For the boys of the CCC, their foremen and supervisors, it wasn’t that way. We have them to thank for the fact that we can view the vastness of Grand Canyon in safety and near luxury.

A Blog Action Day Editorial

2007-10-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

October 15th has been proclaimed Blog Action Day, with the selected focus being the environment. Nothing could be more pertinent to the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps than the environment and environmental issues. I defy anyone to point to another era in our nation’s history when the better part of a generation was given the opportunity to live and work in nature to improve America’s forests, parks and fields. Between 1933 and 1942 the enrollees of the CCC planted between 2 and 3 billion trees, developed some 800 state parks, built over 13,000 miles of foot trails and developed 52,000 acres of public campgrounds nationwide.

The story of the CCC is so closely intertwined with the environment, one could argue that environmentalism is at least the second biggest reason anyone actually remembers the CCC of 75 years ago. (The number one reason that most folks probably cite for remembering the CCC is that they have a family member who was in the program. This is not to say these same people will actually know anything about the CCC and how it was organized, but they remember the program because of a relative.) A few revisionist historians occasionally remember the CCC as well, but only for the purpose of trying to paint it as part of a larger theoretical failure of the New Deal. Whether or not the New Deal was a failure, I cannot say. However, I can say, without fear of meaningful contradiction, that the CCC was the most successful of the New Deal's many programs.

Parks and even forests that did not exist in 1933 sprang from nothing during the era of the CCC. Then, after four years of national focus on a World War and ridding the world of fascist aggression, Americans were able to return to more pleasant pursuits and there, waiting for them, were the myriad forestry and recreational improvements that the CCC boys had created. Few stopped to remember that a lot of those CCC boys went off to fight that war and didn’t come home to enjoy the fruits of their pre-war labor. Some folks are starting to remember now.

What we think of as “environmentalism” today was probably more akin to “conservationism” in the 1930s. Men (mostly) entered parks and forestry professions because they were good with their hands, knew field craft and could probably whip most comers down at the local tavern on Saturday night. They were called “rangers” or foremen, or supervisors or Local Experienced Men – LEMs for short. Today, their rough edges seem foreign to some of us, but many of their ideals prevail. Who doesn’t marvel at the quiet of a forest? Who isn’t touched by the beauty of sunlight through the treetops? Who isn’t impressed by the careful fit of granite stones placed 70 years ago?

Under the careful tutelage of these conservationists, the boys of the CCC lived and learned, worked and played. They learned to get along, and sometimes they learned the consequences of not getting along. In the process, these boys became conservationists themselves. In some cases the boys saw parts of their country that they otherwise might never have seen, and, on the cusp of traveling overseas to fight and die for that country, they probably gained a new appreciation for their United States.

It isn’t a stretch to say that the Civilian Conservation Corp raised a first generation of conservationists/environmentalists. It also isn’t a stretch to say that most Americans have forgotten that fact.

National CCC Reunion a Huge Success!

2007-10-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

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.

"Red" Erwin: CCC Enrollee, Medal of Honor Recipient

2007-09-10T12:13:00.001-07:00

This is the story of Henry “Red” Erwin who served in the CCC in Alabama and went on to earn the Medal of Honor in the Pacific Theater. We’ll probably never know for certain how Red’s CCC experience impacted his later life or if it was even partly responsible for his singular act of heroism, but we all know that the CCC played a meaningful part in millions of men’s lives, and while they didn’t all go on to earn the Medal of Honor, they did work together to form the backbone of what is now known as “The Greatest Generation.”

Hard times made a man out of Henry Eugene Erwin at an early age. Born in Docena, Alabama in 1921, his father died when Henry was just 10 years old. As the oldest of several children, he took a job. Gene, as his family called him, dropped out of high school to join the Civilian Conservation Corps where he was put in charge of crews planting kudzu in northern Alabama.

After the CCC, Gene worked in a steel mill before joining the Army in January 1943. Worried the war would pass him by, he passed up a chance to attend Yale. Gene trained on B-17s, then transferred to B-29s where he served as a radio operator. In early 1945 he was shipped to Guam for assignment to the 52nd Bomb Squadron and joined the crew of a B-29 named “City of Los Angeles,” where he promptly picked up the nickname “Red” because of his red hair.

On Erwin’s 18th mission, the squadron was assigned to bomb the Japanese chemical plant at Koriyama, north of Tokyo; the City of Los Angeles was tasked to be the lead bomber. At the rendezvous point, it was Erwin’s job to jettison phosphorous smoke bombs though a tube in the fuselage of the B-29 as the signal for the other planes to form up.

For reason’s unknown, a smoke bomb malfunctioned and exploded in the tube then shot back into the plane striking Erwin in the face. Thick white smoke immediately filled the front of the plane and 1,300 degree phosphorous began to burn Erwin, blinding him, burning off his hair, most of his right ear, part of his nose and large patches of skin.

In addition to Erwin’s wounds, the plane and crew were in mortal danger. Flaming phosphorous was burning through the metal bulkhead. It was now just a question of whether the blinded flight crew would crash into the ocean before the fire reached the bomb bay causing the entire plane to explode in midair.

With tremendous presence of mind, Erwin snatched up the flaming canister and began to work his way forward, pausing painfully to unhook the latch on the navigator’s table, holding the burning bomb between his bare arm and his ribcage to do so. In the process, the white hot “phosphorous burned through his flesh to the bone” according to an Air Force report.

Meanwhile, the pilot and co-pilot were completely blinded by smoke as Erwin inched closer and closer to their position. Once past the navigator’s table, Erwin worked his way forward and threw the phosphorous bomb out the co-pilot’s window.

As the smoke cleared Erwin’s crewmates began to realize what had happened and what Erwin had done. When they saw him, they were horrified. “Are you alright?” one asked. “I’m fine,” Irwin replied. Another crewman had turned a fire extinguisher on Erwin and put out the fire, but the phosphorous continued to burn on and under the skin.

The pilot jettisoned the bomb load and turned for Iwo Jima for an emergency landing as the crew worked to comfort and stabilize Irwin who they knew was dying before their eyes. Irwin never lost consciousness and, as the designated first aid man on the crew, warned them not to administer too much morphine. He even asked, “Is everybody else all right?”

Major General Curtis LeMay, commander of the XXI Bomber Command ordered that the award paperwork for the Medal of Honor be expedited so that the presentation could be made while Irwin was still alive; approval reportedly coming from Washington in record time. There was no Medal of Honor available in the theater, and according to one report, one of Erwin’s squadron mates “appropriated” a Medal of Honor from a display case in Pearl Harbor.

Red Erwin was awarded the Medal of Honor by General LeMay on April 19, 1945 on the Island of Guam. Thirty days after his harrowing mission on the City of Los Angeles, Erwin arrived in Sacramento to continue his miraculous recovery. “I got down to 87 pounds, skin and bones…I didn’t give up.” Erwin told a reporter years later.
Discharged in 1947, Red Erwin underwent 41 surgeries to restore his eye site and the use of one arm. He worked for the Veterans Administration for 37 years, retired with 43.5 years of federal service and received an “outstanding” performance rating every single year. He and his wife raised a son and 3 daughters. Henry Eugene Erwin passed away on January 16, 2002.

Death on the Fire Line: The Blackwater Fire of 1937

2007-08-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

Aerial view of the Blackwater Fire, USFS Photo

(Note: There is no new scholarship here. This account of the Blackwater tragedy has been compiled from a number of sources, not the least of which are Timothy Cochran’s 1987 biography of Ranger Clayton and the detailed study of the fire done by Ranger Karl Brauneis, recently retired from the U.S. Forest Service. I’m especially indebted to Karl Brauneis who corresponded with me at length, providing background and his very useful professional insight into the event. A list of sources appears at the end of this post.)

What came to be called the Blackwater fire started with a lighting strike in the Shoshone National Forest some time on Wednesday, August 18, 1937. The resulting fire smoldered and crept through the ground fuels for two days before it was reported by the owners of a local hunting camp. At nearly the same time, a spotter plane, observing another fire in a nearby basin, detected the smoke in the Blackwater Creek drainage and, upon landing, reported the approximately two acre fire to the Wapiti Ranger Station.

Fittingly, the first group of seven CCC enrollees arrived at the fire on their own initiative. Returning from a work detail, the men spotted the fire as it began to crown into the treetops. Unable to make contact with the local district ranger, Charles Fifield who was already working the fire, the CCC foreman set his men working to scrape a fire line at the base of the fire. Typically, local residents could be counted on to respond to a fire hazard, but with July and August the busy tourist months in the region, few felt inclined to leave their paying work at the hunting and tourist camps to fight a fire for meager wages. Additionally, the local cooperators may very well have felt, with some justification, that the local CCC camps could be counted on to adequately handle what otherwise would have been a community responsibility.

Shortly after 3:30 P.M. on August 20th, the Wapiti CCC camp was alerted and, according to one account, men from this camp were moving toward the fire within twenty minutes of receiving the alarm. Initially, the smoke was rising vertically from the area of Blackwater Creek, however as the rangers and CCC enrollees neared the fire the smoke and flame grew in intensity. Nightfall found Ranger Fifield, along with some seventy firefighters working to construct fire line around the blaze that had grown to 200 acres by 8:00 P.M. that night. Though winds were light, the canyons served to pump air to the blaze in a familiar scenario, and the forest crowned out in several places, pushing spot fires ahead of the main fire.

After meeting with rangers on the fire line at around 8:00 P.M., Shoshone Forest Supervisor John Sieker left to obtain additional men with the hope of having 150 men on the fire line by daylight. Among those requested were fifty men from the Tensleep CCC camp in the Big Horn National Forest. During the night two crews of roughly thirty men each were detailed to construct fire line around the flank of the fire in two directions extending out from Blackwater Creek. Daylight found 120 men working the fire, which had blown in a northeasterly direction, overtopping Trail Ridge to burn in green timber on the other side. The prevailing winds made this the area of concern, the “hot spot” as one ranger recalled.

The first fifty reinforcements, CCC enrollees from camp BR-7-W at Deaver, arrived at approximately 1:30 P.M. and, because they were relatively inexperienced, they were detailed to the quieter west sector to continue line construction and to offer partial relief for a crew that included CCC personnel from Yellowstone National Park. At approximately the same time, fifty-one CCC enrollees and Forest Service personnel from the CCC camp at Tensleep arrived and headed to a new sector to extend fire line northeasterly from Trail Ridge.

The Tensleep crew was comprised of CCC enrollees from Company 1811, which had been reassigned to Wyoming from Texas just three short months earlier. In Texas, the men of Company 1811 worked to create Bastrop State Park, establishing bridle paths, guest cottages and lakes for fishing. As was the case with many CCC companies, once the work in Bastrop State Park was finished, Company 1811 pulled up stakes and transferred to another camp for new work assignments. Usually reassignment involved moving to another camp in the same state, but entire companies were occasionally moved en masse from state to state. Consequently, in the summer of 1937 the men of Company 1811 found themselves far from their homes in Texas, living and working in a camp at 8,600 feet above sea level, in the shadow of snow capped Cloud Peak. Most would travel the same route back home when their time with the CCC was finished, but some would depart earlier, their bodies shipped home to grieving families.

The men from the Tensleep camp should have arrived at the Blackwater fire much earlier than the Deaver crew, however Supervisor Sieker’s request to have them on the fire by 8 A.M. did not pan out. First, there was an inexplicable three-hour phone delay in relaying the message to the Tensleep camp. To make matters worse, Sieker’s estimated travel time proved to be optimistic. The Tensleep crew, led by Junior Forester Paul Tyrrell and Foreman James Saban, left the Tensleep CCC camp early on the morning of August 21, 1937, and, after traveling more than 180 miles over rough roads in the dark, arrived at the Blackwater Creek supply camp around 11:30 that same morning. The crew was given a quick meal, outfitted with tools and lunches and marched toward the fire line with the foremen taking up positions at the front and rear of the column. A project superintendent from the Wapiti camp reported the men “were in good spirits and many joking remarks were passed back and forth” as the crew passed through the upper fire camp. At the upper fire camp the Tensleep crew was met by Forest Rangers Al Clayton and Urban Post. Clayton had been called up by Supervisor Sieker to take charge of the troublesome east fire line. Knowing the rough climb ahead, Ranger Post ordered the foremen to make certain the men only filled their backpack pumps half full before proceeding to the fire line with Ranger Post and Junior Forester Tyrrell leading and Ranger Clayton and foreman James Saban taking up the rear.

Post recalled that he and the crew passed through a group of Park Service and Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) workers before arriving at their place along the fire line. As the crew began to string out along the edge of the fire, they crossed a draw with a small trickle of water and Post detailed one man to remain and build a dam to impound water for the backpack pumps. Having been placed in charge of safety for the eastern fire sector, Clayton remained in the area of the stream, all the while monitoring the overall situation. With Clayton near the draw was Foreman Saban, Forest Technician Rex Hale from the Wapiti CCC camp and CCC enrollees David Thompson, John Gerdes, Will Griffith, Mack Mayabb, George Rodgers and Roy Bevins from the Tensleep camp. “Everyone was in good spirits,” Post reported afterward. “The day clear and quiet, the fire barely smoking – it appeared to be an easy task to get a line through the basin to timberline before sundown.” Post’s optimism was misplaced.

By about 3:15 P.M. Post, with the balance of the Tensleep crew had reached the end of the Bureau of Public Roads fire line and were strung out to continue the fire line. Post recalled afterward that the work ahead of them appeared to be quite simple: Extend the fire line to connect with a natural firebreak created by a rocky ridge to the northeast. As Post’s men set to work, the BPR crew was below their own fire line working to put out two small spot fires that had jumped the line.

At about the time Post’s men were setting about the task of fire line construction, Ranger Clayton, still near the spot where the Tensleep crew had begun its fire line under the supervision of Foreman Saban and Technician Hale, spotted the telltale sign of new smoke below the fire line. Recognizing the potential hazard of fire below the fire line crew, Clayton wrote a quick note and gave it to enrollee Thompson for delivery to Post:
Post, We are on the ridge in back of you and I am going down to the spot in the hole. It looks like it can carry on over the ridge east and north of you. If you can send any men, please do so, since there are only eight of us. Clayton.

Other crews and technical service personnel saw the same spot fire as well and preparations were being made to attack it from a number of directions when events spiraled out of control. At approximately 3:30 P.M. erratic winds blew the fire into the forest crown both above and below the fire line. What had been the simple task of establishing a fire line now became a hurried search for an escape route and a matter of life and death. Post quickly ran to the northwest, climbing a rocky outcropping to scout the fire’s progress. From his vantage, Post saw a spot fire growing to the north and northeast of his crew. Post decided to put some or all of his men on the new spot fire. Then, a sudden wind shift pushed the blaze back to the southwest and Post’s proactive response became a reactive response, and he ordered his crew to abandon the fire line and proceed in a northeasterly direction to the ridgeline.

In the midst of this confusion Thompson arrived with Clayton’s note. With 40 men in tow, including elements from the BPR crew, Post deemed it foolhardy to go back down into the fire. With shifting winds peaking at 45 miles per hour, and crown fires erupting overhead, Post made the only reasonable choice: take his men and run. Post would later write:
Tops of the trees swung in the strong wind which was coming up through the basin, spot fires developed between the large spot fire and the main fire, and the wind had reached our line almost at once, and the large fire was a furnace immediately….Some of us wait for Tyrrell and the last ones out. The smoke is thick, the air is hot; we hurry up the ridge. Heavy tools are left behind. We take lady shovels, Pulaski’s and canteens – we may need them for our own protection.

The fleeing crews reached an opening, or what Post referred to as a “small park” but the escape route was blocked by fire, which was also burning around to the south of the open refuge. As the men considered their few remaining options, the wind shifted again, causing the forest crown to ignite lower down the ridge and perilously close to the men and their open refuge.
All down on the ground! (Post recalled.) But some do not have time to respond. Red spots appear on faces, and skin is stripped from all exposed surfaces. The heat is terrific, and it seems unbearable, but we have no safer place. If this is the end, we must take it here.

In the heat, smoke, ash and panic, some of the men became unmanageable. Some refused to lay on the ground, preferring to take their chances with a dash through the blaze, while others sat up to say prayers. Junior Forester Tyrrell pinned three men to the ground, holding them still and shielding them from the heat.

As the smoke cleared, Post began to shift the men around the open park, avoiding each successive wave of heat and fire. The worst of the fire was over by 5:00 P.M. but the smoke remained so thick that Post and his men stayed in place for nearly three more hours before rising from their refuge to begin the painful walk out of the burn. Of the forty or so men trapped with Ranger Post, seven would die either on the spot or later from the burns they suffered. Among the dead, five CCC enrollees (4 of whom had attempted to run through the flames), one Bureau of Public Roads crewman and Junior Forester Paul Tyrrell who had struggled so valiantly with the panic-stricken men to shield and restrain them.

Precisely what happened to Ranger Al Clayton and the seven men left behind near the stream crossing is unclear because, of this group, there were no survivors. No doubt Clayton would have been mustering the men for an attack on the spot fire he detected below the fire line. A theory advanced by one of the fire investigators speculated that Clayton may have scouted ahead to check the spot fire, possibly taking some of the men with him, leaving the rest to wait for reinforcements from Post’s crew. In traveling down the gulch toward the spot fire, Clayton would not have had the unobstructed vantage enjoyed by Post and his crew and thus, would not have seen the blow up developing. Once the danger became apparent, Clayton and possibly his crew would have hurriedly turned back up gulch toward the streambed to seek refuge in its potentially cooler, wetter surroundings. Reportedly, the condition and location of Clayton’s body indicates he may have been late in getting back to the stream crossing, having returned from scouting the fire. If Clayton wasn’t leading his men back toward the stream bed, with its promise of cooler fresh air, he was in the act of collecting the men when the blow up overtook the entire group.

The bodies of Clayton and six of the men in his detachment were found lying within 30 feet of each other. Another enrollee, Roy Bevens was found badly burned within 60 feet of the others. As he was being evacuated, Bevens exclaimed, “God, how lucky I am to be alive.” He would later die of his injuries in a hospital in Cody, Wyoming.

In the immediate aftermath of the blow up and its tragic consequences, fire suppression work all but ceased as crews fanned out into the burn to search for victims. Ranger Clayton and the men in the gulch were discovered in the process of extricating Post’s group from the burn. With help from rescue parties, the scarred and fatigued survivors carried the dead and dying of Post’s group down to the lower fire camps where they were tended to before being transported to hospitals in Cody.

As fire fighting work resumed, the body of Ranger Al Clayton and the six men who died with him were removed in the late morning and early afternoon of August 22, 1937. A local newspaper reporter wrote of the scene:

Seven pack-horses, each with angular forms wrapped in canvas and lashed to the saddles, filed slowly out of the wooded ravine and stopped at the cars. Over a hundred wide-eyed, ashen-gray youngsters, just ready to go to the fire line, pushed forward, drawn by a chilling magnetism to see what their former comrades looked like.

New CCC crews continued to arrive until at one point more than 500 men were fighting the blaze. By noon on Tuesday, August 24th the fire was listed as officially under control and on the following day the Forest Service supervisors began to release CCC crews to return to their camps and their regular duties. Finally, on August 31st, ten days after the fatal blow up and almost two weeks after lightening started a seemingly inconsequential blaze, the last of the fire fighting crews were disbanded, having constructed more than eleven miles of fire line in the process of extinguishing the Blackwater Fire.

In the immediate aftermath of the Blackwater Fire, David P. Godwin of the Forest Service Division of Fire Control based in Washington, DC conducted the government investigation of the event. In his report, Godwin found little fault with the foremen and supervisor’s handling of the fire. Godwin’s attention focused on the travel times of the units reacting to the fire and specifically on the critical delay experienced by the crew from the Tensleep camp. Godwin speculated that, had they arrived as scheduled, the Tensleep crew would not have been deployed where they were when the fire blew up and thus may very well have survived unharmed.

Today, Godwin is remembered as the man who, just two years after the Blackwater fire, authorized the expenditure of funds to carry out parachute jumping experiments linked to fire suppression. To say that Godwin, the man who investigated the Blackwater fire, had a hand in the creation of what came to be known as the smokejumper program is not an overstatement. One has to wonder what role the Blackwater tragedy had in sharpening Godwin’s resolve to put crews on the fire line in rapid fashion, thus leading to his support for airborne suppression tactics.

*** *** ***

On August 21, 1939, beneath a cloudless Wyoming sky, more than 500 local residents and dignitaries gathered for the dedication of three monuments to the men who died fighting the Blackwater fire two years earlier. The first ceremony took place near the junction of Blackwater Creek and the Shoshone River, where a stone monument some 71 feet long bears the names of those killed in the nearby forest. During the dedication ceremony Burt Sullivan of the Bureau of Public roads was awarded the American Forestry Association fire medal for heroic service during the fire. Five months earlier, Ranger Urban Post received a similar medal for his actions in leading his men to safety. Prior to the Blackwater Fire, no medal for forest firefighting heroism existed.

Following the dedication ceremony at the large monument, a group of officials traveled on horseback to dedicate a smaller monument in the newly renamed Clayton Gulch. The smaller monument, like it’s larger companion some nine miles away, was constructed by CCC enrollees. A third monument at “Post Point” marks the spot where Ranger Post and his men sought refuge.

The role of fighting forest fires would remain the purview of the CCC until the U.S. entry into World War II spelled the end of the conservation work program. One chronicler of the CCC reported that forty-seven CCC enrollees lost their lives fighting forest fires between 1933 and 1942. In that period, the CCC devoted nearly 6.5 million days to fire suppression, or the equivalent of 16,000 men laboring for an entire year on an eight-hour day. The soldiers of Roosevelt’s Forest Army were quickly absorbed into the very real branches of the military, but in the final days, as congress debated whether or not to keep the program, one of the principal arguments for keeping the CCC in place was its use as a fire suppression force that would be especially useful during wartime.

The Blackwater fire was by no means the first or the last mass tragedy in the annals of forest fire history; indeed other fire events have taken a greater toll in lives lost. What sets the Blackwater fire apart is the fact that, for 70 years, the tragedy has remained in the shadows of history, overpowered by more recent events like Mann Gulch and Storm King. Of the dead of Mann Gulch, the elder MacLean wrote, “They were young and did not leave much behind them and need someone to remember them.” MacLean might just as well have been writing about the dead of Blackwater Creek, who, save for their foreman and leaders, have been largely lost to history.

Killed in the Blackwater Fire:
Alfred G. Clayton, Ranger
James T. Saban, Technical Foreman
Rex A. Hale, Jr. Assistant to the Technician
Paul E. Tyrrell, Jr. Forester
Billy Lea, Bureau of Public Roads Crewman
Enrollees:
Clyde Allen
Roy Bevins
Ambrogio Garcia
John B Gerdes
Will C. Griffith
Mack T. Mayabb
George Rodgers
Ernest Seelke
Rubin Sherry William Whitlock

Source List

“12 Die, 48 Injured As Forest Burns.” New York Times 23 August 1937: 8.

1937 Annual. Civilian Conservation Corps, Company 1811. No pub. No date.

Brian Ballou. “Blackwater Fire.” Wildland Firefighter February 2000.

Karl Brauneis. “1937 Blackwater Fire Investigation.” Static Line. Vol. 3 – Edition 4, July 1997.

Timothy S. Cochrane. “A Folk Biography of an United States Forest Service Ranger, Westerner, and Artist: A.G. Clayton.” PhD Dissertation Indiana University, 1987.

David P. Godwin. “The Handling of the Blackwater Fire.” Fire Control Notes. U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service. December 6, 1937.

John MacLean. Fire on the Mountain. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1999.

Norman MacLean. Young Men and Fire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Stephen J. Pyne. “Flame and Fortune.” The New Republic 8 August 1994: 19-20.

Jack Richard. “Fire Line Hell.” Sports ‘Afield August 1941: 29+.

John A. Salmond. The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942: A New Deal Case Study (Durham: Duke University Press, 1967).

United States. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service. Rocky Mountain Bulletin Memorial Number Blackwater Fire. Vol. 20, No. 10: October 1937.

Who Will Remember the Dead of Blackwater?

2007-08-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

CCC Fire Fighting Crew Photo Courtesy of NACCCA

They were young and did not leave much behind them and need someone to remember them.
---- Norman McLean, Young Men and Fire

(Note: August 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of the single deadliest day for Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees on the fire lines during the Great Depression: the Blackwater Fire in Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest. This editorial explores the possible reasons why the event has not received the popular and scholarly attention that other similar events have received. A detailed account of the Blackwater Fire will be posted in the near future.)

In the somewhat limited canon of forest fire history, two seminal events are taken out and dusted off every summer when the western United States is under threat of a major forest fire blowup: the Mann Gulch Fire of 1949 and the Storm King Mountain Fire of 1994. To the unenlightened, Mann Gulch and Storm King roll off the tongue like the names of long-dead jazz musicians but to historians and students of fire science they are written and spoken of with reverence. As fire history, Mann Gulch and Storm King have held their own not simply because each fire event claimed the lives of men and women who were sent to fight them. Mann Gulch and Storm King offered valuable lessons for any fire professionals willing to pay attention. Add the fact that each fire has been the subject of a book length treatment, and the rest is history as they say.

Mann Gulch and Storm King have arisen from their own smoke and ash into bright sunlight thanks to the masterful work of Norman and John MacLean, a father and son duo who transformed the events into battlefield engagements, fought by heroic professionals, and the battle’s aftermath into crackling good storytelling and a search for answers. In Young Men and Fire, the elder MacLean, in the roll of storyteller, led his readers up the steep slope of Mann Gulch with a group of fleeing smokejumpers, past their foreman’s improbable escape fire, to a gap in the rocks beyond which three would pass, but only two would survive. Their foreman lay down in the smoking remains of his escape fire and survived, as did two of the quickest smokejumpers. The rest burned where they fell, their wristwatches and personal effects blown upslope by the force of the fire’s hurricane winds.

In Fire on the Mountain, Norman MacLean’s journalist son John led us down a Colorado fire line in the midst of the 1994 Storm King fire, and then in a rush, back up the slope in the face of a torrential blow up, then ultimately, out into a different kind of blow up as one public agency pointed the finger at another. Again, professional firefighters, this time smokejumpers and hot shot crewmembers died in a losing uphill race against a blowup, but at Storm King there was a new, cruel twist: among the dead were women firefighters.

There has been no such redeeming reportage for the 1937 Blackwater fire, an equally costly and no less tragic event that killed 10 Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees and four of their technical service supervisors just eleven years before the Mann Gulch disaster. Why? Consider the overarching national emergency of the Great Depression and there is little wonder why the dead of Blackwater Creek do not seem to speak as loudly as their brothers and sisters in arms who have perished on the fire line since. Additionally, we might do well to remember that in 1937 Americans didn’t grieve so openly and, like it or not, men weren’t required to cry.

There may be one really good reason the dead of Blackwater Creek have not received the scholarly and popular acclaim accorded those who died at Mann Gulch and Storm King. Despite Norman MacLean’s argument to the contrary, historians really are little more than storytellers. Consequently, history favors the glamorous. History favors the swashbuckler who swings down from on high to fight dangerous foes using cunning and bravery. Storytellers prefer to recount tales of brave young men and women who enter a particular profession because they are brave and because they seek to be tested. The story of the Blackwater fire has no swashbucklers and no such tales of youngsters striving to stare down the ultimate test. With the exception of the forestry personnel, the dead of Blackwater were not professional firefighters. The boys who marched into Blackwater Creek on August 21, 1937 were enrollees in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a workfare relief program designed to keep young men off the streets and out of trouble, while teaching them a trade if possible. There is little glory in being out of work. History remembers the well trained and elite smokejumper, not the barely post-pubescent CCC enrollee who earned thirty bucks a month with orders to send twenty-five of it home to needy family members.

Nevertheless there was an air of esprit about the CCC boys who battled fire in a Wyoming forest so far from their homes in Texas. Mustered like soldiers, garrisoned like fighting troops, their personal time overseen by the watchful eye of army officers, they lacked only the mantle of elite professionalism carried by so many of their successors. Although their degree of training varied from camp to camp, CCC enrollees could be relied upon to be sober and hard working, especially when supervised by knowledgeable government personnel. For all their potential weaknesses, including the fact that many were barely out of their teens, the argument could still be made that not before, nor since the CCC, has the United States had a larger, more easily deployed fire suppression force on active standby. Further, one could argue that the fire suppression work of the CCC has existed in the shadow of the smokejumpers and hotshot crews who came after.

It is estimated that between 1933 and 1942, some 3 million young men passed through the ranks of the Civilian Conservation Corps, many on their way to a bigger, more deadly blowup in an overseas world war that would come to make their CCC service pale in comparison. No hard figures have been kept, but it is estimated that in 9 years some 57 CCC enrollees died fighting forest fires: ten at Blackwater in Wyoming, seven near Emporia, Pennsylvania, five near Orovada, Nevada and dozens of others anonymously, individually in forests across the nation, often far from their own homes and families. In his heart-wrenching book about the Mann Gulch fire, Norman McLean wrote that the dead smokejumpers of Mann Gulch were young and needed someone to remember them. We would do well to remember the equally young, if somewhat less glamorous enrollees of the Civilian Conservation Corps who fought fire and died in the forest in a time before anyone seemed to take notice of such things.
(© Michael I. Smith, 2007)

Life in Riley Creek Camp F-3-W (Wisconsin)

2007-08-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Civilian Conservation Corps camps were really like small towns, with just about everything an enrollee would need to live and work and thrive – well almost everything. In the early phases of the program, camps were of permanent construction, sometimes built using enrollee labor and sometimes built by local construction crews. Once the CCC work was done in an area, the camps were often turned over to the local community or simply abandoned with portable equipment and material being salvaged for use elsewhere. Eventually the expense of this practice began to come home to Robert Fechner, the director of the CCC and in 1936 it was decreed that all future CCC camps would be made up of portable structures, built from a pre-cut standard design. This decision was hailed by local officials. (It is also worth pointing out that some architecture historians claim that portable buildings really didn’t come into being until after the U.S. entry into World War II, but the fact of the matter is that the CCC was doing it long before 1941.) With the switch to portable buildings, the camp plan was also standardized, in that it called for each camp to have four barracks buildings, one mess hall, one classroom building, one latrine building, bath houses, and twelve additional structures to house camp officers and for other camp operational functions.

While the building types remained constant after 1936, the configuration of CCC camps varied from region to region and from location to location, due to differences in topography, geography and the availability of a potable water source. Some camps were arranged around a central, open area where company formations were held and other camps were arranged in neat rows, often tightly grouped to make the best use of available space on a small, open piece of flat ground.
So then, let’s have a look at Company 642 and their community at CCC Camp Riley Creek, F-3-(WIS) in Fifield, Wisconsin to see if we can get a feel for how the enrollees lived and played in their small “town.” These images come from a series of photos taken at the camp in October 1940.

This is Company 642, the all-male inhabitants of Camp F-3-W, a forestry camp under the command of Julius Schmeichel, who, along with a second-in-command, a physician, an educational advisor and a chaplain, was in charge of the enrollees during their time in the camp. Let's take a closer look at the residents of F-3-W.

A closer look at camp commander Schmeichel and his staff. For some reason, the foremen from the technical service are not pictured with the group, but they would have been men from the U.S. Forest Service or possibly a state department of forestry. For the purposes of our analogy, these men represent the mayor and town council of our little town.

Company 642 included 10 leaders and 16 assistant leaders. This young man has been promoted to a leader position as evidenced by the three stripes on his sleeves. Additionally, he carries some other rating, which is unclear, but may be a first aid insignia.

Not all the enrollees sport the CCC shoulder patch, which could indicate that this was a private purchase item. This smiling fellow does have the CCC shoulder patch on his left shoulder.

This young man has a variant of the CCC patch: a shield with the letters “CCC” over an image of a surveying transit and a pine tree.

This guy elected to display his CCC patch in a rather unorthodox way: sewn to the front of his uniform trousers.

Company 642 had a few tough customers….

...and a few who seemed to always be having a good time.

Company 642 also had a few fellows who looked to be barely out of high school.

Of course, Camp F-3-W was like many, many CC camps in that it had at least one pet or mascot. In this case it’s man’s best friend, but some camps claimed bear, deer and raccoons as pets.

This is part of Camp F-3-W, where Company 642 lived, learned and played. In keeping with regulations, the camp is neat and tidy. Typically the enrollees were assigned work around the camp area on Saturday’s in order to keep up with housekeeping. Rock-lined paths separate the buildings and in the distance is a camp sign, possibly a bulletin board to let enrollees and visitors know what’s going on in camp.

This is a view of the motor pool for camp F-3-W. As with the rest of the camp, the area is neat and clean, the trucks parked carefully, as if for inspection. At least one of the trucks is rigged to carry passengers as evidenced by the bench seats in the bed. This truck may have been used to carry enrollees to the job site and into town on the weekends.

Here is a view of the camp mess hall and the interior of one of the barracks. In the mess hall you can see the kitchen area off to the right. The camp commander and his staff may have taken their meals at the single table at the back corner of the building. Interestingly enough, camp commanders and technical service foremen did not eat in the mess hall for free, but were charged for meals eaten in the camps.

The barracks is Spartan – the CCC was not a summer pleasure camp. Noteworthy in this picture are the raincoats and laundry bags hung neatly by each bunk. Also of note is the nametag affixed to each bunk and the three heating stoves. Often the stoves were barely sufficient to keep the barracks warm and usually an enrollee was assigned the job of making sure the stoves kept burning all night.

This view shows the camp canteen and library. Small items like candy, combs, pipes and smoking tobacco were offered for sale in the camp canteen, which was run by an enrollee. The funds usually went toward the purchase of items to improve camp life.

In most camps, the reading room was usually a place for quiet study, letter writing and occasionally evening classes in forestry, leather crafts, mathematics or reading. The camp F-3-W library appears to have a good selection of magazines and you’ll note a sign that reads “Do It Now,” hanging from the ceiling.

Thus ends our virtual tour of Camp Riley Creek F-3-W in Fifield, Wisconsin. In pondering these young men as they looked in October 1940, it’s important to consider that many of them probably went into the military not too very long after these photos were taken. It’s sad to think that some of these bright, eager faces may not have returned from the World War they went off to fight. Likely, they would prefer that we remember them for their service in helping stamp out totalitarianism and we certainly do remember and honor their service, but we’d do well to also remember a more peaceful time that no doubt shaped their perceptions of democracy and fairness, ultimately leading to that most significant of sacrifices. We should also remember those who survived and went on to have useful, vital, productive lives. Certainly our thanks go out to all of them, the residents of this tidy little town near Fifield, Wisconsin.

The Folly of Revisionist History

2007-07-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

I’ve pointed out in the past that I am not an economist. I’m not even an historian, really. I’ve made almost a single-minded study of one aspect of the New Deal and have largely divorced it from the other programs and policies of that era. Having said that, I have never and will never argue that the New Deal was a success because of the Civilian Conservation Corps; I only know that the CCC was a success in its own right and it can’t be used in any meaningful argument aimed at debunking the success of the New Deal.

The recently released book The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, is touted as an honest reappraisal of Roosevelt’s New Deal and, while I have not yet read it, I’ll go out on a limb here and state that if Ms. Shlaes attempts to use the Civilian Conservation Corps as an example of how the New Deal failed, she’d better not rely on the likes of other “historians” who’ve argued likewise. For example, she’d be smart avoid relying on Jim Powell for information on the CCC. (Shlaes website: http://www.amityshlaes.com/)

Jim Powell’s flaccid attempt to tar the CCC in his book FDR’s Folly is a good example of revisionist history run amok. As indicated in its subtitle, Powell’s book outlines, “How Roosevelt and his New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.” FDR’s Folly contains only 3 references to the CCC and for all that, Jim Powell would have been better off ignoring the CCC altogether.

Powell’s first reference to the CCC is a somewhat benign statement linking Roosevelt’s policies as governor of New York to his later creation of the CCC. Pretty simple. However, Powell’s other two references to the CCC step carefully across a line to imply something more. Powell notes that the CCC “was one of FDR’s first proposals for relief, offered March 9, 1933.” Then, as if casting about for something negative to say, Powell goes on to state that because labor organizations disliked the $1 a day wage being proposed, “the CCC wasn’t signed into law until March 31.” Okay, so it took 22 days to get the CCC proposal from vision to reality. By today’s standards, when new legislation passes through the House and the Senate at a glacial pace, the legislation creating the CCC was a model of speed and efficiency! Is Jim Powell aware that Roosevelt’s first 100 days are the standard by which all other administrations have been judged? Perhaps Mr. Powell thinks it should be the “First 50 Days.”

Mr. Powell then goes on to vaguely outline how the CCC was run, “very much like the army,” with enrollees reporting to “army training camps” before being assigned to companies under “…corresponding army commands.” “The men wore army uniforms, were driven around in army trucks, slept in military-style open barracks and were commanded by regular and reserve military officers as well as civilian CCC officers.”

Clearly Jim Powell is troubled by the military involvement in the CCC. Had he bothered to do some real research into the CCC, Mr. Powell would have learned that in 1933 the average American was easily as reticent about the military’s involvement in the CCC as he seems to be – if not more so. Had Mr. Powell bothered to check, he would have learned that CCC director Robert Fechner attempted to move forward with as little military involvement as possible in 1933, but when it became obvious that he couldn’t meet the enrollment goals set forth by the president, the War Department was called upon to ratchet up their participation to better speed the process of feeding, equipping and transporting the first 250,000 new enrollees. As it turned out, the military effort in connection with the mobilization of the CCC was excellent preparation for our later involvement in a world conflict.

As for army uniforms and army trucks, the uniforms were World War I surplus and in fairly short order the transportation was largely handled by the technical agencies like the U. S. Forest Service, National Park Service and the Soil Conservation Service, with CCC enrollees (not army personnel) doing the driving. And when it comes to active and reserve military commanders, Mr. Powell failed to point out that active duty commanders were replaced with reserve officers, many of whom had been put out of work themselves, so they had more in common with the enrollees than with their active military brethren.

Not content to put a stain on the CCC by implication, Mr. Powell then purports to outline some of the work done by the CCC and the statement is cynical enough to be worth quoting at length:

“The CCC men worked primarily in wilderness areas planting trees, trying to control tree diseases, and building fire towers and truck trails that might be used for fighting forest fires…CCC officials claimed they imparted useful skills like reading. The CCC was expensive, costing over $2 billion between 1933 and 1939, and a disproportionate amount of money went to western states.” (Emphasis added.)

So in Mr. Powell’s assessment the CCC tried to control tree diseases (where no meaningful effort had been made previously) and they constructed improvements that might be used for fighting forest fires. Furthermore, officials “claimed” that the program imparted useful skills, “like reading.” I’ll assume that Mr. Powell does in fact believe reading to be a useful skill. Again, had he bothered to look at some facts, Mr. Powell would have learned that in addition to reading, enrollees learned valuable work skills and discipline that they carried with them the rest of their lives. Many enrollees would go on to have life-long employment based upon skills they gained in the CCC. As for the question of whether or not the work of the CCC was useful in fighting forest fires, the statistics show a marked decline in the occurrence of forest fires during the years that the CCC was in operation and many of their forest roads are still in use today. Dozens of CCC enrollees died while fighting forest fires; a fact that Mr. Powell apparently failed to dig up in his very limited research.

Mr. Powell closes the statement by claiming a disproportionate distribution of CCC funds. The claim is vague enough that it will escape scrutiny by most readers. What does Mr. Powell mean when he refers to “money” that went disproportionately to western states. If a larger amount of funds for CCC work went to western states, it’s because a larger chunk of the public domain is in the west. If Mr. Powell takes enrollee allotments into consideration, then he’s way off the mark. While a majority of the physical and aesthetic improvements took place in western states, a good number of enrollees came from large eastern cities. These enrollees were required to send as much as $25 of their $30 monthly allotment home to their families back east. If we compare total enrollments by state for fiscal year 1937 for example, we see that 3,863 Coloradoans were enrolled, 1,468 Arizonans were enrolled, and 8,411 Californian were enrolled. By comparison, 16,697 New Yorkers were enrolled, 12,646 Pennsylvanians were enrolled, and 11,973 enrollees hailed from Massachusetts. So, if we talk simply in terms of work done and improvements made, it could be argued that the western United States benefited more from the work of the CCC than did the rest of the country. However, if we consider where the bulk of enrollment took place and thus where the enrollment benefits were going, we’ll see that the eastern states gained their share of benefit from the CCC as well.

Jim Powell’s final comment regarding the CCC involves an “embarrassing” episode involving Henry Ford, who was an ardent opponent of the National Recovery Administration. It seems Mr. Ford refused to sign on to the NRA’s automobile code. Nevertheless, when the CCC ordered 500 trucks, Ford’s bid was $169,000 less than the next lowest bid from Dodge. In the end, Mr. Powell reports, the CCC went with Ford’s lowest bid, and the reader is left to puzzle a bit over what the real scandal was exactly. Again, had Mr. Powell done any meaningful research in connection with the CCC, he would have leaned about the infamous 1933 “toilet kit scandal” and it’s implication of CCC bid-rigging. Furthermore, Mr. Powell doesn’t bother to explain why the CCC accepted bids for trucks if the army was doing all the driving, as he claims in an earlier section of the book.

Admittedly, Jim Powell’s book isn’t about the CCC exclusively, but given the paltry research done to back his claims, Jim Powell would have done well to leave the CCC out of his book. Furthermore, the flimsy arguments Mr. Powell uses to attack the credibility and usefulness of the CCC, call into question the arguments he uses to attack the rest of Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Amity Shlaes’ new book has come out to rave reviews. It will be interesting to see how she addresses the CCC in her appraisal of the New Deal. Frankly, without new, meaningful research to support it, no meaningful case can be made against the New Deal using the CCC as an example. In short: Criticize the New Deal to your heart’s content, but don’t hang your argument on the Civilian Conservation Corps.
(Copyright 2007, Michael Smith)

"Hey, accidents happen!": Drunken Driving, Foul Balls and Mechanical Defects

2007-07-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

Historians are really just storytellers. The best historians are those who can find the best stories, without having to resort to embellishment or revisionism after the fact. In the years and decades to come, historians, researchers, scholars and avid students of the Civilian Conservation Corps will eventually turn their attention to more obscure source material, in an effort to recount new and better stories about to the CCC. The realm of CCC history is a wide-open field for research and many are beginning to see that, especially as the 1941-1945 war years become evermore burnt over from a historical research standpoint. Future storytellers may be rewarded with some interesting insights into lesser-known aspects of the CCC and from time to time they may even get a chuckle out of what they find.

For example, in 1935, 1936 and 1937, there came up for discussion a number of Senate reports entitled “Settlement of Individual Claims for Personal Property Lost or Damaged From the Activities of the Civilian Conservation Corps.” These reports are basically a listing of claims made by regular citizens against the government, seeking reimbursement for damages received as the result of CCC activity. Understandably, nearly all of the claims in the 1935-37 period were the result of vehicular mishaps.

Each of the incidents is noted to have been investigated by a board of officers who then made their recommendations regarding payment of claims and in some cases, fixing partial blame on the CCC enrollee. In only one case does it appear that full responsibility was placed on the head of the unfortunate CCC enrollee. On November 26, 1933 – perhaps in connection with Thanksgiving festivities that year – an intoxicated CCC enrollee, operating a CCC truck on the streets of Grand Junction, Colorado, “struck and damaged” a legally parked automobile belonging to one Andy McKelvey. “The operator of the truck,” the report states, “was apprehended, tried, found guilty, and confined as a result…” Mr. McKelvey received the princely sum of $65.35 “on account of damages sustained.”

Bureaucratic red tape is nothing new and in the CCC there existed a strict set of guidelines and particular forms that had to be filled out in the event of an accident involving a CCC enrollee or vehicle. In the Manual of Administration for the Civilian Conservation Corps, written as a how-to guide by Army Lieutenant L.P.D. Warren in 1935, there is printed a sample copy of an investigation report. Lieutenant Warren points out in his text that if the owner of the private vehicle expresses their intention to file a claim against the government for damages, they were required to fill out Quartermaster Corps (QMC) Form #28, five copies of which would accompany the report of the investigating officer, but the Form #28 would not be listed as an attachment to the report. Other forms that were to be included and listed as attachments were the driver’s report of accident Form #26 and the investigating officer’s report Form #27.

Ironically, in Lt. Warren’s manual, there also appears a sample accident report for a mishap involving a CCC truck from a Soil Conservation Corps CCC camp at Athens, Georgia on May 4, 1935. It seems that on that day, government Dodge truck #32341, driven by Enrollee “X” (I’ll protect his name. He might be a member of a CCC veteran in your home town.) collided with a vehicle owned and driven by Mr. Ramey Epps of Athens, Georgia. Although the truck was listed as being on “official business” from Camp SCS-1, it was determined that Enrollee “X” was under the influence of intoxicants and he was found fully responsible for the accident. As a result, Enrollee “X” was required to pay $4.00 to cover the cost of repairing the government vehicle. The investigating officer’s recommendation that Enrollee “X” also pay $13. 35 to cover repairs to the privately owned vehicle was overturned by the District Headquarters.

Most of the incidents cited in the Senate reports don’t include things as salacious as drunken CCC enrollees cruising the streets of America’s cities looking for things to bang into, in fact most of the accidents are chalked up to bad road conditions and a condition generally referred to as a “mechanical defect.” For example a vehicle belonging to a Frank W. Brunner of Springfield, Illinois was damaged to the tune of $38.55, “when, due to a mechanical defect in the front wheels” the operator of a CCC truck struck and damaged Mr. Brunner’s car. In another incident involving a CCC truck outside Minersville, California, “the clevise (sic) pin sheared off,” leaving the CCC vehicle out of control, at which point it collided with a privately owned automobile causing $49.10 in damages. “Mechanical defect” was also along for the ride when Miss Lucy Ahrens’ vehicle was damaged due to a collision with a CCC vehicle in Tacoma, Washington on May 14, 1935.

Not all mishaps involving the CCC and damage to vehicles were the result of drunkenness, mechanical defect or treacherous road conditions. On April 14, 1935, Mrs. Clara B. Chapman was proceeding east on State Highway Number 103 in Van Buren, Missouri. Mrs. Chapman passed Big Spring Park as a group of CCC enrollees were engaged in baseball batting practice – as part of the authorized athletic program of Company 1740, the report is careful to point out. A foul ball struck Mrs. Chapman’s car “damaging it to the extent of $15.10.” One has to wonder how a foul ball can cause $15.10 worth of damage while other claims involving the collision of trucks with private vehicles occasionally resulted in claims as low as $7.90.

Finally, there is the Senate report involving a claim filed by H. C. Ledford of Randle, Washington. Here it seems fitting to quote the entry as it appears in the report:
“On May 4, 1935, the operator of a Civilian Conservation Corps truck, while proceeding in a westerly direction on Lower Cispus Road, near Randle, Wash., at approximately 25 miles an hour, attempted to stop after being hailed by boys who were driving a herd of cattle. Upon applying the brakes the pin sheared off, causing the operator to lose control of his vehicle, which collided with two cows, property of the claimant, damaging one of them to the extent of $20.”
How would one determine if a cow had been “damaged,” exactly? Furthermore, with the price of meat what it is today, I wonder if it’s still possible to only do $20 worth of “damage” to a cow.

So, what’s the lesson in all this? Storytellers – historians – aren’t always interested in portraying the entire story if one piece of it will suit their needs. For example, it’s become fashionable among scholars and academics to argue that Pearl Harbor was somehow the United States’ fault and that Hiroshima was simply an act of barbarism perpetrated on an already beaten Japanese nation. Do you think that our CCC history will be immune from such slanders in the years to come?

Taken as a whole, the Senate reports on payment of claims due to accidents involving the CCC are a useful insight into the workings of our government and they offer a glimpse of how things were handled in the camps. Picked apart and taken selectively, the reports might be construed to show that CCC enrollees were a bunch of boozing truckers, rumbling around the nation in vehicles rife with “mechanical defects” and thus not fit to drive.

The story of the CCC is your story but it will only serve for good if you tell the story. When grandchildren, nieces and nephews, sons and daughters ask you to tell of your time in the CCC, they’re asking because they want to know and that’s reason enough to tell the story. However there will be a bigger purpose to the telling in years to come when those memories take the form of oral histories and personal narratives that historians use to recount the story of Roosevelt’s Conservation Corps. Sure, tell the whole story, warts and all, and good historians - storytellers who are faithful to the trade - will accurately recount what you accomplished in a worldwide economic depression and a World War, while perhaps adding that no CCC enrollee was perfect.
Copyright 2007, Michael Smith (This article appeared in a slightly modified format in the NACCCA Journal.)

The Soil Army Invades Phoenix South Mountain Park

2007-07-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

A Conservation Army Mobilizes
Given its quiet beauty today, it’s hard to believe that South Mountain Park played host to some 4,000 members of a peacetime conservation army between 1933 and 1940, but that is the fact of the matter. Indeed, without this peaceful occupation by self-proclaimed “Soil Soldiers,” Phoenix South Mountain Park would not exist as we know it today.

When Franklin Roosevelt assumed the office of president in 1933, America was in its fourth year of what has come to be called The Great Depression. Fully one-quarter of the population was without work and some 2 million young men and women are believed to have taken to the road in search of work and a meaningful future. Rightly or wrongly, many grew fearful that this wandering generation would fall into mischief or worse, under the spell of agitators. Action was needed and fast.

Among the many programs created in the first 100 days of Roosevelt’s fledgling New Deal was the Emergency Conservation Work program, which came to be known as the Civilian Conservation Corps – the C.C.C. Open to young, single men aged 17 to 28, the C.C.C. mobilized over 250,000 enrollees in the spring of 1933 and by the time the program was discontinued following the attack on Pearl Harbor, some 3 million young men served in the program, working in camps in every state and territory of the United States. Arizona saw its share of benefit from the labor of the C.C.C. On average 50 camps operated in the state and by 1942 some 41, 362 Arizona men received valuable employment and training in the C.C.C.

The Camp That Almost Wasn’t
South Mountain was a likely candidate for placement of a C.C.C. camp when the second phase of work began in the fall of 1933. Little had been done to improve what was then known as Phoenix Mountain Park following its creation in the 1920s so the area seemed a natural fit for the establishment of a C.C.C. camp to perform useful work and create valuable improvements. Nevertheless, there was a snag. The government mandated that C.C.C. camps must possess a source of potable water. In 1933, Phoenix Mountain Park lay some 8 miles outside the Phoenix city limits and possessed no viable source of water.

The city balked at the idea of providing a water supply for the then remote park site so Phoenix’s application for a C.C.C. camp was denied. There the matter might have rested if not for the intervention of Senator Carl Hayden who contacted the Office of National Parks, Buildings and Reservations to assure them that the $5,100 needed to provide a water supply would be taken care of. Senator Hayden was able to impress upon city officials the important potential benefits of having a C.C.C. camp at the park and on October 25, 1933, the Arizona Republic proclaimed “Opening of Mountain Park Well Assures Corps Camp.”

The Showplace Camps
Senator Hayden’s efforts paid out in spades because South Mountain was actually allotted two C.C.C. camps, designated SP-3-A and SP-4-A. The establishment of two camps so close to Phoenix can be traced to a request from the Secretary of the Interior to the director of the C.C.C. asking that some camps be established in areas adjacent to population centers. The proximity to a major city meant that the South Mountain Park C.C.C. camps became the showpiece camps of the Phoenix District, with civic leaders and dignitaries dropping by seemingly without notice.

Louis Purvis, an enrollee who transferred to South Mountain with the rest of his C.C.C company from a camp at Grand Canyon in October 1937, described camp SP-3-A in his book, The Ace In The Hole:
The road from Phoenix to South Mountain came through the campsite, separating the administrative offices from the rest of the buildings…it was imperative that the entire camp be ready for inspection at all times. This camp was the showplace for the Phoenix, District. All official guests who came to visit the Phoenix District headquarters were escorted to South Mountain and Camp SP-3-A.

For a C.C.C. company recently stationed in a remote camp near Grand Canyon, assignment to a camp so close to Phoenix was a welcome prospect, even if it meant the attention of visiting dignitaries, but high-ranking officials weren’t the only potential drop-in guests at the South Mountain camps. The 1936 Phoenix District Annual noted that Company 2860 and camp SP-4-A were “always on display and always ever ready for inspection by that most critical inspector, The Public…” South Mountain Park was already becoming a popular visitor attraction in part because of the work of the C.C.C. and the enrollees were expected to keep up appearances at all times.

The Tunnel That Almost Was

The work of C.C.C. enrollees at South Mountain Park, like the work of enrollees across the country, was varied and vigorous. A project plan for October 1935 through March 1936 included construction of vehicle, horse and hiking trails, erosion control, construction of guardrails, rock excavation and landscaping. Rock for some of the projects was excavated and hauled from as far away as North Mountain, on the opposite end of the city. According to one remembrance, the burly enrollees were usually selected for this work.

One project did not materialize, despite having the unqualified support of the landscape architect assigned to work on C.C.C. projects in the park. Department of the Interior plans called for a 500-foot long tunnel through the mountain near the summit of Telegraph Pass, linked to a southern approach road. In a 1936 letter to the Parks Department in Phoenix, William H. Douglass, the landscape architect who took credit for the tunnel idea, expressed satisfaction at hearing the tunnel was still being considered. Douglass explained that upon receiving word to halt construction of the tunnel road, he and the camp superintendent instead put the C.C.C. enrollees on overtime to excavate the site and, just before the camp was to close for the season, they set off charges, “so they [the next work crew] had to go ahead with the new location or leave a scar in the side of the mountain.” Despite Douglass’ best effort, the tunnel and its southern approach road were never completed, though the idea continues to crop up even today when residents living on the south side of the park demand better access to their jobs near downtown Phoenix.

A Fitting Legacy
By 1942 when the C.C.C. was disbanded South Mountain had 40 miles of trails, 18 buildings, 15 ramadas and 164 fire pits, water facets and other improvements largely due to the work of C.C.C. enrollees. Today, South Mountain Park no longer sits at the edge of the city, but is instead surrounded by homes and businesses, and little remains of the camps in which the Soil Soldiers lived and worked. However, the work of Roosevelt’s conservation army lives on in the ramadas and hiking shelters that continue to benefit visitors to South Mountain, and a careful hiker may even find a star-shaped stone and concrete structure that served as the base of the camp flagpole nearly 70 years ago. Copyright 2007. Michael Smith
(A modified version of this article previously appeared in the South Mountain Villager.)

Catching Up With Robert Moore: CCC Historian and Author

2007-07-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

As we approach the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, we expect that scholars and historians will increase their coverage and reporting of history related to the CCC - certainly that is our wish, anyway. A history of CCC work in Arizona promises to ride the wave of interest in this topic as we move closer to the important anniversary milestone in 2008. The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona’s Rim Country: Working in the Woods, by Robert J. Moore, published by the University of Nevada Press in 2006 will be of interest to anyone seeking a scholarly but down-to-earth account of CCC work in the western United States. Moore’s work includes footnotes, a useful bibliography, and index, which should make it a boon to other researchers of the CCC. On the other hand, the personal narratives make it historical storytelling at its best.

Working in the Woods grew out of an exhibit Moore put together during his time as a seasonal ranger with the U.S. Forest Service in northern Arizona. After gathering a number of pictures of CCC work in Arizona for the exhibit, Moore decided it would make the foundation of a good book about the CCC. Work on the book began in the summer of 1999 and it was released for sale in August of 2006, but it wasn’t always an easy project. Moore estimates that he approached 15 to 20 publishers with his book proposal – amassing a good-sized stack of rejection letters – before the field of potential publishers was narrowed down to Texas A&M University Press and University of Nevada Press. In the end, the University of Nevada Press took on the project and the result is a terrific account of the work of the CCC in Arizona, a region Moore feels has been largely overlooked by CCC researchers and writers up to now.

Moore explains that the content of the book is divided roughly in half, with the first part of the book devoted to a history of approximately 13 Arizona camps, while the second half of the book is based upon interviews with CCC alumni, including Richard Thim, Eugene Gaddy, Charles Pflugh and Marshall Wood among others. Moore’s research centered primarily on camps in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, but also includes information on camps in the Tonto and Coconino National Forests as well.

Moore expresses disappointment that more photographs could not be included in the book, but the publisher set a limit of 50 images, a rule that was strictly enforced despite Moore’s efforts to add additional pictures. In the end, Working in the Woods seems amply illustrated with a number of images that have seldom, if ever, been seen in Arizona and which certainly have been rarely viewed outside the state. Moore is also dismayed that the book isn’t being offered for sale in some Arizona locales that would seem to be an obvious fit, such as the Mogollon Rim Visitor Center in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.

Moore said he has not been in constant contact with the publisher for updates on sales of the book but he reports orders have come in a “steady stream” and have come in from as far away as Hawaii. With the approach of the 75th anniversary of the CCC, it stands to reason that interest in Moore’s book will only increase. Additionally, the fact that many of Arizona’s CCC camps were staffed with enrollees from Oklahoma, Texas and Pennsylvania, interest from these parts of the country should grow as word spreads about the book.

One advantage to having so much information for the book: Moore says that, because he was able to amass so much research material, he is planning to publish a CCC-related article in the Journal of Arizona History. Late word is that the piece will run in the issue due out in late July and will focus on the CCC experience of Pennsylvania enrollee Charles Pflugh and his CCC work at Chevalon Canyon, Arizona. Moore estimates that the Journal article will draw about 60% of its material from the book and 40% will be new material, along with about a dozen photos, most of which did not make it into the book and have never been published before.

Bitten by the CCC bug, Bob has begun another CCC research and writing project, this time focusing on CCC work in Wisconsin’s Devil’s Lake State Park where the CCC built trail and visitor amenities using native stone. Bob has been a friend to Arizona’s CCC alumni for a number of years and we’ve watched as he worked on and struggled with getting his book published. We continue to consider him a friend and even a member of our extended CCC family, but now, with the publication of The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona’s Rim Country: Working in the Woods, he will become a friend and family member to CCC alumni and researchers across the country.

The CCC and the German Labor Service: We Know The Difference

2007-07-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

Despite what you may have heard, and contrary to what some historians may be saying in the months and years to come, our Civilian Conservation Corps and the Reich Labor Service of Nazi Germany were the offspring of two distinct ideologies and the programs approached their task from vastly different perspectives.

An in depth discussion and explanation of the CCC is not warranted here, except as it compares to its German counterpart but it may help to have a brief description of the German Reicharbeitsdeinst or RAD; the German National Work Service. The RAD was created in 1934 as the official labor service of the German state and the Nazi party. The RAD was an outgrowth of previous labor organizations that existed largely as a result of the economic hardships being faced by Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. In their initial manifestation, these labor organizations focused on supplying labor for agricultural related duties and relieving some of the strain of high unemployment – remember that the Great Depression was a worldwide depression and Germany likely suffered more as a result of her defeat in World War I. With the consolidation and renaming of various labor services over time, and the rise to power of the Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, six-month service in the newly named RAD became compulsory for young men aged 18 to 25. Upon completion of their RAD service, the young men then entered military service. (An exemption was given to young men who signed up for officer training, in which case their compulsory RAD service was waived.)

Prior to Germany’s instigation of war in 1939, the RAD worked to reclaim marshlands, build dikes, build and repair roads, plant trees and harvest annual crops. With Germany’s general mobilization in late August 1939, over 1,000 RAD units were transferred over to the general military – primarily the Army – where they worked as construction troops in direct support of the military. RAD units served on all fronts in World War II, from Norway to the Mediterranean, and from France to Russia. RAD members carried weapons, manned anti-aircraft batteries and were eligible for combat medals. In April 1945, the RAD died with the criminal regime from which it sprang.

Knowing what we know, it’s difficult to understand how a historian or scholar could closely align the American CCC with the German RAD, but some have done it and in years to come, more may do so. Who knows why they’ll do it? They’ll do it because it’s fashionable to equate something noble with something sinister. They’ll do it to prove Franklin Roosevelt was a bum, or the New Deal a scam. They’ll do it because there’s nothing else to write about and they must publish something or risk losing their grant money, thereby slipping into that awful group of folks who have to work for a living.

Stated simply, we know the difference. Young Germans were compelled to join their nation’s labor service. Young men in America often begged to be allowed to enroll in the CCC and were occasionally turned away several times before gaining entry. In their first few weeks in the German National Work Service, young Germans learned military drill and the manual of arms (using a shovel instead of a rifle) before they ever set foot on a work site. In the United States, a distinct line was drawn between the work project and the limited influence of the military running the camps. Finally, no CCC enrollee embarked for combat against a foreign enemy and while many a former CCC enrollee earned a medal for valor, serving in some faraway place, he did so with his CCC service behind him and in the distinctly different uniform of the U.S. Marines, Army, Navy, Coast Guard or Merchant Marine – not in the forest green uniform of the CCC.

Soldier, Statesman, CCC Commander

2007-07-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

George C. Marshall, the only soldier to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, was a Civilian Conservation Corps commander in the northwest United States before rising to prominence during World War II and its aftermath.

Of his association with the CCC, Marshall recalled: "I found the CCC the most instructive service I have ever had, and the most interesting. The results one could obtain were amazing and highly satisfying…" And, "a splendid experience for the War Department and the army…best antidote for mental stagnation that an Army officer in my position can have."

Marshall, who lived in Vancouver, Washington from 1936 to 1938, was commander of the Vancouver Barracks where he was also charged with the task of setting up 19 camps and supervising 35 more. Marshall went on to become a five-star General of the Army, chief of staff and finally secretary of state where he authored the famous Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe following its destruction during World War II. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

Here’s a telling incident from the book Soldier, Statesman, Peacemaker by Jack Uldrich:
A brash young major stormed into Marshall’s office and said, “I’m a graduate of West Point. I’m not going to come down here and deal with a whole lot of bums…[and] half-dead crackers.” The major assumed that Marshall would cave in to his demand for transfer out of the CCC. Marshall replied, “Major, I’m sorry you feel like that. But I’ll tell you this-you can’t resign quick enough to suit me.” As the young major stood there stunned, Marshall added, “Now get out of here!”

A Peaceful Occupation: The C.C.C. Remembered

2007-07-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

In 1933 a conservation army trooped into the forests, fields and parks of this country to begin what would ultimately amount to some nine years of continuous work. The conservation army that undertook this peaceful occupation was Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps- the CCC. Among the results: trail systems in Grand Canyon, visitor amenities in Yellowstone, Shenandoah, and Acadia, improvements at Mesa Verde, Colossal Cave, and Colorado National Monument and forestry improvements in all of our national forests. And this only scratches the surface.

Historians and economists are mixed in their appraisals of FDR’s Depression-era New Deal. Some argue the many alphabet agencies created under the New Deal were a lifesaver to millions of Americans, while others point to the creation of so many government agencies and mark it as the rise of bigger government and the demise of personal self-sufficiency in our culture. Some experts have even argued that Roosevelt’s policies actually prolonged the Great Depression. My point here is not to argue the merits of the New Deal at large. I’m not an economist. I will never attempt to defend so large and grandiose an endeavor as the New Deal, but I’ll defend the record of the CCC against all comers. And I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that the Civilian Conservation Corps was the most successful, most popular and most fondly remembered of all New Deal programs.

The Emergency Conservation Work program, as the CCC was originally called, was part of Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office. From the time that it was initially introduced, the act that created the CCC took just eighteen days to get through congress and on March 31, 1933 President Roosevelt signed the bill into law. The measure under which the CCC was created was known simply as “an act for the relief of unemployment through the performance of useful public work.” There were no grandiose proclamations about saving the environment just the promise of gainful employment for single young men aged 17 to 28 years. Roosevelt hoped to avoid drawing workers out of the nation’s farms, fields and factories by focusing the effort on conservation. Roosevelt explained, “I propose to create a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with the normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects…This enterprise will…conserve our precious natural resources. It will pay dividends to present and future generations. More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual gains of such work.”[Emphasis added.] Roosevelt was referring to the “overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans…[who]…would infinitely prefer to work,” and perhaps more specifically to a vast army of unemployed youth who’d taken to the roads and rails in search of employment.

Roosevelt’s stated goal was to have 250,000 young men deployed to forestry camps across the nation by the spring of 1933. The goal seemed unattainable, but enthusiasm at the local level was immense. Within two weeks of the official creation of the CCC, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico informed the administration that 23,480 idle workers could be put to work in their states immediately. This figure applied to workers for national forest lands only; additional workers were needed for projects on state land and in National Parks as well.

In a cooperative effort not seen before or since, the Departments of War, Labor, Agriculture, and the Interior, worked together to select suitable enrollees, provide the necessary medical checks and inoculations, issue supplies and work clothes and arrange transportation to the many camps scattered throughout the United States and its territories. Contrary to some notions, the CCC was not run by the military. The camps – usually home to about 200 enrollees – were placed under the command of a reserve military officer, but military discipline was prohibited and enrollees were only under general control of the commanding officer during their hours in camp. During the workday, enrollees labored and learned under the watchful eye of foremen and supervisors from the technical services such as the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation and the Soil Conservation Service.

Roosevelt’s initial enrollment goal was achieved and ultimately some 3 million young men passed through the ranks of the CCC between 1933 and 1942. For their six month enrollment, enrollees were housed, clothed, fed and paid $30 a month, of which as much as $25 was sent home to needy family members; after all, what good was $30 in the pocket of a lad living in a forest camp? What the economy needed was dollars to circulate and the CCC helped make that happen. The establishment of a CCC camp typically meant an additional $5,000 in monthly expenditures in the local marketplace. Some camp commanders, sensing that the presence of their camp was not fully appreciated by the local populace, used silver dollars to pay the enrollees their $5 monthly allowance, which was often quickly spent in the local town. Merchants, suddenly finding so many silver dollars in their cash registers, would quickly realize what a boon the nearby camp had become.

Nationwide, the work of the CCC is staggering even today. At civil war battlefields monuments were repaired and cleaned and the unheralded dead exhumed to be carefully placed in cemeteries. In our nation’s dust bowl region CCC enrollees worked on erosion control projects and shelterbelts. West of Denver, in a natural bowl of huge flanking red rock formations, CCC crews built Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater to take advantage of the natural acoustics in the magnificent geologic feature. The amphitheater continues to draw concertgoers today. In the Carolinas, young men worked with archaeologists researching prehistoric cultures. At the Mission La Purisima, a mission church originally constructed in the late 1700s in what is today Lompoc, California, enrollees were put to work rebuilding the ancient mission using largely the same tools and techniques used during the original construction. Young men worked redwood roof timbers with adze and axe. Other enrollees painstakingly recreated the proper texture on the exterior adobe. In a wood shop enrollees worked on reconstructing everything from the mission’s massive doors to handmade replicas of mission furniture. Indeed, the quest for authenticity was so strict that even ironwork like locks, keys, hinges, iron and brass lighting fixtures and iron nails were hand-forged.

Still other chores cropped up out of immediate necessity; for example, the use of CCC personnel to fight forest fires is a widely documented practice and several enrollees gave their lives in this effort. Search and rescue operations frequently took advantage of CCC manpower and enrollees gathered ticks for scientists studying Rocky Mountain spotted fever. All in a day’s work, an enrollee might learn how to sharpen tools, work in concrete and masonry, operate a jackhammer, set explosives or drive a caterpillar tractor.

In fiscal year 1937 alone the CCC built a total of 2,476 vehicle bridges, 11,559 miles of truck trails and they strung over 10,000 miles of telephone and power lines, largely to the benefit of our National Forests and National Parks. Multiplied over 9 years, these sorts of numbers become almost incomprehensible and the fact that we continue to derive benefit from this work almost three-quarters of a century later is unfathomable in our modern throwaway society.

In addition to gaining work skills training, many CCC enrollees were given an opportunity to continue their grade school and high school education, and some progressed to college level coursework by attending classes in the evenings. Additionally, a significant short-term benefit came out of the CCC program that has not been widely explored by historians. Experience in the CCC camps prepared many young men for their coming service in the military during World War II. Accustomed to some form of discipline and regimentation, knowledgeable in the rudiments of keeping their living quarters squared away, the former CCC enrollee-turned-GI Joe could get on with the more important tasks of training for combat. So, while many decried its quasi-military structure during the 1930s, many others would see the CCC as having been a valuable breaking-in period for the much rougher years from 1942 to 1945.

America’s entry into World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 signaled the end of the CCC. Faced with a two-front war, and with America’s industrial complex gearing up for the war effort, congress failed to appropriate funds to keep the CCC working in the forests, fields and parks, and by the end of fiscal year 1943 the program was deemed fully liquidated. The “boys” of the CCC became the men of Corregidor, Midway, Anzio and Omaha Beach. Vocational skills gained in the CCC camps were put to use in our factories building tanks and airplanes. Nearly to a man, former CCC enrollees will tell you that the CCC was the best thing that ever happened to them, but as a nation we tend to remember more about the World War they fought between 1942 and 1945, than we do the quieter time from 1933 to 1942 when our nation was home to the Civilian Conservation Corps and its peaceful occupation. copyright 2007 Michael I. Smith