State-By-State: Kentucky

1938 Camp Map for Kentucky

If you are looking for detailed information on the work of the CCC in Kentucky, you’re really in luck because there is at least one book devoted to CCC work in that state.  Kentucky’s Civilian Conservation Corps by Connie M. Huddleston will be a boon to anyone researching Kentucky’s CCC work; the photos and illustrations alone make it a real treasure.  I am especially drawn to Huddleston’s text and photos related to the work of the CCC at Cumberland Falls State Park.  A few years ago, the annual Civilian Conservation Corps reunion was held at Cumberland Falls State Park so in the case of Kentucky, I have some photos of my own to share.  To access an article about the reunion that I posted at the Forest Army blog back in 2007, click here.

Huddleston notes that the first CCC camps established in Kentucky were those at Cumberland Falls and Mammoth Cave and that by October 1935 a total of 35 camps had been opened in the Bluegrass State.  More to the point, Perry Merrill provides a snapshot of camp totals in his book Roosevelt’s Forest Army.  According to Merrill, there were 44 CCC camps in Kentucky in June 1937.  This total is likely taken from the annual reports published by the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C.  The Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year ended June 30 1937 gives the breakdown of camps by types in Kentucky exactly as reported by Merrill, specifically:

CCC-built bench and steps, Cumberland Falls, KY

National Forest Camp: 8

State Forest Camps: 1

Private Forest Camps: 8

Agricultural Engineering Camps: 2

Soil Conservation Camps: 14

National Parks Camps: 4

State Park Camps: 6

Military Reservation Camps: 1

The total monthly enrolled strength for enrollees entering the CCC from Kentucky in fiscal year 1937 was reported as follows:

July 1936:  11,272

August 1936:  10,750

September 1936:  8,907

Ft Knox CCC Conditioning Camp, 1934
(Click to enlarge.)

October 1936:  13,289

November 1936:  12,779

December 1936:  12,158

January 1937:  12,901

February 1937:  12,342

March 1937:  8,392

April 1937:  12,641

May 1937:  12,014

June 1927:  10,956

The Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps for fiscal year ended June 30, 1939 reported that the total number of camps in Kentucky was down to 28, broken down as follows:

National Monument Camps:  3

State Park Camps: 3

National Forest Camps: 4

State Forest Camps: 1

Private Forest Camps: 5

Agricultural Engineering Camps: 2

Soil Conservation Service Camps: 10

It is worth noting that along with the lower number of camps in Kentucky in fiscal year 1939 compared to fiscal year 1937, the number of enrollees joining the CCC from Kentucky each month was also significantly lower in 1939; just 7,631 in July 1938, 7,271 in November 1938, 7,111 in January 1939 and 4,169 in March of 1939.  One might speculate as to the reason behind such a drop in enrollment numbers from 1937 to 1939 (the enrollment count for Kentucky in March 1939 was only about half of what it was compared to March 1937).  Perhaps the economy was improving, perhaps there were more agricultural jobs available for seasonal workers.  Perhaps Kentucky’s quota of enrollees had been reduced.  We do know that by 1939 enrollees from eastern states, including Kentucky, were being shipped out to the western United States where there was a greater need for their labor.

In his book The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942, John Salmond points to an even more compelling reason for a decline in enrollment numbers between 1937 and 1939.  After some four years of priming the nation’s economic pump, the Roosevelt administration was desperate to rein in spending and to balance its budget.  Consequently, in late 1937 CCC Director Robert Fechner was told that estimates for the 1938-1939 fiscal year had been reduced by $125 million.  Fechner pointed out that this would mean closing just over 400 CCC camps nationwide by July of 1938 but his protests fell on deaf ears.  The reductions were made as a budget balancing measure and this is likely one major reason for the reduction in the number of camps in Kentucky between fiscal year 1937 and fiscal year 1939.

Even with a reduction in the total number of camps, the CCC accomplished great things in Kentucky during fiscal year 1939.  Here are some examples from that year alone, taken from the Annual Report for 1939:

Vehicle Bridges:  14

Pipeline:  11,654 linear feet

Permanent Check Dams:  73

Temporary Check Dams:  3,305

Seed Collection, Conifers:  79 bushels

Seed Collection, Hardwoods:  10,536 bushels

Collection of Tree Seedlings:  9,270 seedlings

Firefighting, Forest Fires:  10,515 man days

Remember that these figures are for a single year (1938-1939).  Multiply this effort over the 9 year lifespan of the CCC and you truly have a noteworthy list of accomplishments in Kentucky alone.  Naturally, this effort was not accomplished without some sacrifice, and the cost was occasionally documented in the pages of Happy Days, the official newspaper of the CCC.  Likely the first incidence of a CCC fatality in Kentucky to be documented in Happy Days was the death of Jack Stafford, which was reported in the April 14, 1934 issue.  Jack was killed in a truck accident during a trip home and it would seem that enrollees in Kentucky were especially prone to accidents during their free time.  The March 3, 1940 issue of Happy Days reported that Daniel Miller, an enrollee with Company 512 at Chappell, Kentucky, was accidently shot and killed by his nephew while on leave.  The August 3, 1940 issue reported the death of enrollee John Elliot, also from Company 512 at Chappell.  Elliot was killed in an auto accident en route back to camp while on leave.   W.P. Harris, an enrollee with Company 1562 at Madisonville, Kentucky was killed in a work related truck accident (Happy Days, August 4, 1934) and Carl F. Snyder of Company 563, Corbin, Kentucky, was killed in a logging accident (Happy Days, May 25, 1935).

By and large, CCC camps were welcomed by residents of nearby communities.  It is estimated that the establishment of a CCC camp meant an additional $5,000 in expenditures in the local community so it makes sense that local towns would welcome the CCC simply from a monetary standpoint.  But CCC enrollees often endeared themselves to residents of nearby cities and towns as a result of their work and often as a result of their behavior.  In The CCC Chronicles, Alfred Cornebise notes that the local librarian in Henderson, Kentucky was moved to write an editorial about the local CCC camp, her words of praise appeared in the Company 1540 camp newspaper, the Cromwell Cardinal.  The librarian wrote that “rarely does a detachment of men, stationed near a town, make the good impression on the community that the CCC Camp has made on Henderson…  This most satisfactory condition is due, of course, not only to the boys but to the institution of the camp, to its discipline, its educational system, to its general conditions.”

CCC-built stone steps and retaining wall, Cumberland Falls, Kentucky

 

Sources

Cornebise, Alfred Emile, The CCC Chronicles: Camp Newspapers of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Macfarland and Co., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2004.

Huddleston, Connie, M., Kentucky’s Civilian Conservation Corps.  The History Press, Charleston, South Carolina, 2009.

Merrill, Perry H, Roosevelt’s Forest Army, 1981, Perry H. Merrill, Publisher.

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

U.S. Government Printing Office, Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1937.

U.S. Government Printing Office, Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1939.

Copyright, 2013, Michael I. Smith

State-by-State: The CCC in Kansas

Look closely at the 1938 map of Kansas Civilian Conservation Corps camps (above) and you’ll see that all but one were “SCS” – Soil Conservation Service – camps.  Why do you suppose this was? 

The state of Kansas lies in the heart of what has come to be known as the “Dust Bowl” region of the United States.  Indeed if you study the map of the dust bowl region that appears in Timothy Egan’s outstanding book The Worst Hard Time, you’ll see that more of Kansas lies in the dust bowl region than any of her neighboring states.  Egan notes that on a single day, “Black Sunday,” April 14, 1935, more than 300,000 tons of topsoil was carried aloft by the arid wind; twice as much dirt as was excavated to carve the Panama Canal!

Most scholars agree now that much of the dust bowl disaster can be attributed to unwise farming practices that degraded the topsoil, making it vulnerable to drought and high winds.  Sadly, the CCC, like the Soil Conservation Service, came along too late to avoid the worst effects of the dust bowl, however it is safe to say that the creation of the CCC helped reverse the trend of rip and tear agriculture, perhaps avoiding further erosion and damage to the land.

Congress appropriated funds to create the Soil Conservation Service just a few days after “Black Sunday” in 1935 and in short order across the U.S. 150 CCC camps previously under the U.S. Forest Service were reassigned for work under the SCS.  But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some terrific recreational improvements made by the CCC in Kansas, as we’ll see.

Not surprisingly perhaps, Ren and Helen Davis list only one Kansas park in their book Our Mark On This Land.  According to the Davises, the only Kansas state park to benefit from CCC labor did so as a result of work by enrollees in an SCS camp:  Camp SCS-10-K.  Camp SCS-10-K was situated in the southeastern corner of Kansas, but you’ll notice that the 1938 CCC camp map shows an SP-2 up in the northwesterly part of Kansas; this is a discrepancy that I am currently unable to completely reconcile.  The facts are unclear even in Perry Merrill’s Roosevelt’s Forest Army.  In the state section devoted to CCC work in Kansas, Merrill notes that there was one state park camp in Kansas in June of 1937, however later in the section he writes that there were no state parks in Kansas until 1955.

The editor at The Civilian Conservation Corps in Kansas very kindly provided some insight into the nature of parks work by the CCC in Kansas.  While a map of Kansas CCC camps might appear to be heavily laden with SCS designated camps, there were aspects of the soil conservation projects that translated directly to parks and recreation work resulting in park type improvements – including a number of lakes - even if the underlying nature of the camp and company was soil conservation or erosion control.

At the end of the day we can take the numbers directly from the fiscal year 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work which lists the breakdown of Kansas CCC camps thus:

State Forest Camps: 1

Soil Conservation Camps: 16

State Park Camps:  1

Military Reservation Camps: 2

The fiscal year 1939 Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps (Notice the name change between the 1937 and 1939 reports; from “Emergency Conservation Work” to “Civilian Conservation Corps?”) reported the distribution of CCC camps in Kansas this way:

State Park Camps:  1

Soil Conservation Corps Camps:  13

If you compare the numbers from the 1939 report with the 1938 map that accompanies this article you’ll see that the total number of SCS camps differs by only one camp between the two.  Obviously, given the numbers in the Annual Reports and given what we know about the Dust Bowl and the desperate need for erosion control and soil conservation efforts in America’s heartland, it’s little wonder that so many of Kansas’s CCC camps were geared toward this sort of work but keep in mind that in doing this work, the CCC boys also created some lasting and valuable recreational spaces that Kansan’s enjoy even today.

Another interesting bit of information for Kansas that appeared in the 1939 Annual Report was the address of the main selection agency for CCC enrollment in Kansas at the time.  If you were a young lad in the state of Kansas in 1939 and you aspired to enroll in the CCC, you would have been well advised to contact the following:

State Department of social Welfare

Frank E. Milligan, Chairman

Mrs. Jean L. Benson, Supervisor CCC Selection

801 Harrison Street

Topeka, Kansas

And speaking of Kansas CCC enrollment, the 1939 Annual Report notes that 3,016 junior enrollees were selected in Kansas that year, along with 164 veterans.

Specific work totals in the 1939 Annual Report show that the CCC performed over 1,200,000 square yards of gully tree planting in Kansas that fiscal year.  Additionally, the CCC dug over 306,000 linear feet of diversion ditches, quarried over 36,000 tons of limestone and they excavated 31,573 cubic yards of dirt to build channels, canals and ditches.

Life in the 1930s was a precarious thing and we’re well aware that some CCC enrollees didn’t survive their time in the Triple C’s.  The February 9, 1925 issue of Happy Days reported on the death of enrollees Mervin Chapman and Kenneth Moore from Company 729, Ashland, Kansas.  Chapman and Moore were killed in a private plane crash.  Edward Cantrell from Company 1711 at West Mineral, Kansas, was killed as a result of falling into a mine shaft according to the August 8, 1936 issue of Happy Days.  A Local Experienced Man (LEM) by the name of Donald Stutes was killed when a grindstone fragment hit him in the face.  Stutes was assigned to Company 4702 at Burlington, Kansas, according to the March 27, 1937 issue of Happy Days.  It is important to consider these losses, even as we marvel at the wonderful work accomplished by the CCC in Kansas and all across our United States.

Be sure to visit The Civilian Conservation Corps in Kansas   for additional information on the work and legacy of the CCC in Kansas.  You’ll also see some terrific photos of Kansas CCC work there.

Sources

Davis, Ren & Helen, (2011), Our Mark on This Land: A Guide to the Legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps in America’s Parks, The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company.

Egan, Timothy, (2006), The Worst Hard Time, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York.

Merrill, Perry H, Roosevelt’s Forest Army, 1981, Perry H. Merrill, Publisher.

U.S. Government Printing Office, Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1937.

U.S. Government Printing Office, Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1939.

Copyright, 2013, Michael I. Smith

The CCC State-By-State: Illinois

Note: Google Blogger refuses to properly format this entry so the paragraph breaks and the individual camp totals and project totals are fouled up. I've tried three times to repost this piece to make it read properly but without success. I apologize for the difficulty and I will continue to remedy the formatting problem. Perhaps it's time to change to a different blogging system. Illinois was situated in the Sixth Corps area, along with Michigan and Wisconsin and according to Perry Merrill writing in Roosevelt’s Forest Army, a total of 92,094 individuals worked in the CCC in Illinois, regardless of their state of origin. The Annual Reports give some indication of enrollment totals in the state of Illinois. For example the Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 breaks out the monthly enrollment totals for Illinois as follows: July 1936: 18,334 August 1936: 17,400 September 1936: 14,368 October 1936: 17,315 November 1936: 16,316 December 1936: 15,554 January 1937: 18,226 February 1937: 17,386 March 1937: 11,127 April 1937: 13,391 May 1937: 12,304 June 1937: 10,890 Remember that these are monthly totals for the number of enrollees who joined the CCC in Illinois – not a total of enrollees actually working in Illinois on a month-to-month basis. In Roosevelt’s Forest Army, Perry Merrill notes that an average of 54 CCC camps operated in Illinois, which is significantly lower than the 70 camps listed in the Annual Report for fiscal year 1937. During roughly that same period (July 1936 through June 1937) the distribution of CCC camps by technical service was reported in the Annual Report as follows: National Forest camps: 8 Private Forest camps: 1 Agricultural Engineering camps: 6 Soil Conservation camps: 27 State Park camps: 27 Military Reservation camps: 1 Merrill’s camp totals for the period ending September 30, 1937 are as follows: National Forest camps: 8 Private Forest camps: 1 Agricultural Engineering camps: 5 Soil Conservation Service camps: 4 State Park camps: 27 Military Reservation camps: 1 Clearly there is a flaw in the data somewhere given that the numbers reported are so significantly different. It doesn’t seem feasible that the Soil Conservation Service lost some 23 camps between the time that the 1937 Annual Report was released and when the camp numbers that Merrill cites came out in September of that year. This is just one example of how difficult it can be to square some of the number totals associated with the Civilian Conservation Corps; heck, historians can’t always agree on how many enrollees actually served in the CCC for that matter. The Annual Report of the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1939 breaks out the average number of camps in Illinois as follows: State Park camps: 20 National Forest camps: 4 Agricultural Engineering camps: 5 Soil Conservation Service camps: 20 It’s interesting to note that this Annual Report includes an error in the total average number of camps in Illinois by technical service. When you total the individual technical service totals you get a total of 49 camps but the total cited in the chart (Appendix H) lists 50 camps in Illinois. Which brings us back to the question of accuracy in the historic record, which may never be completely squared with reality three-quarters of a century after the fact. The 1937 Annual Report also includes a state-by-state list of specific projects accomplished and here are some totals for specific work projects accomplished in Illinois between July 1936 and June 1937. Vehicle bridges: 18 Foot bridges: 15 Horse bridges: 4 Stock bridges: 1 Lookout towers: 3 Trailside shelters: 11 Cabins: 16 Firebreaks: 93.5 miles Fire suppression: 23,779 man-days Emergency wildlife feeding: 2,394 man-days Bear in mind that this is just a snapshot of a single year’s accomplishments. Merrill notes that over the life of the lifetime of the program, the CCC was responsible for the following totals in Illinois alone: Bridges (all types): 394 Trails (all types): 1, 192 miles Trees planted: 32,938,000 It’s interesting to note that if we take the total number of bridges built during fiscal year 1937 (38) and multiply it by 9.5 (the approximate lifespan of the CCC) we get a total of 361 bridges built by the CCC in Illinois, which is pretty close to the total reported in Merrill (394). All told, Merrill estimates that some $36 million in allotments went to dependents of CCC enrollees in Illinois. In 1934 the American Forestry Association published a book entitled Youth Rebuilds: Stories From the C.C.C., which is a collection of personal narratives from CCC enrollees around the nation. Included in the collection is a piece entitled “A Task, A Plan and Freedom,” by James Kidwell, an enrollee in Company 1659 at Rushville, Illinois. Kidwell, who’d spent several years on the “bum” riding freight trains across the country in search of work, was recruited into the CCC by a social worker in Springfield, Illinois and he wrote, in part: My troubles are drowned by hard work. In forestry I have, for the first time, found a profession that appeals to me. So far as freedom is concerned, in what place could I hope to find more isolation from the cares that imprison civilization than in the endless solitudes of the forest? Larry Sypolt’s book Civilian Conservation Corps: A Selectively Annotated Bibliography includes references to source material related specifically to Illinois, including: “An Historical Study of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Illinois,” a Master’s thesis by Frank Mance while a student at Western Illinois University in 1967. Archeology is another field of work that the CCC was occasionally involved with in states across the nation and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Illinois is an example of a state where CCC enrollees conducted archeological work. A set of articles in the September 2008 edition of Illinois Antiquity (Vol. 43 Issue 3) details some of the archeological work done by New Deal agencies in Illinois and while the WPA, the Illinois State Museum and the Illinois State Division of Parks performed the bulk of the excavation work, the CCC performed archeological excavations at three locations in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln’s New Salem State Park (Camp DSP-7), Lincoln Log Cabin State Park (Camp SP-58 or perhaps SCS-5) and Pere Marquette Sate Park (Camp SP-9). Reportedly, archeology work at New Salem and Lincoln Log Cabin State Parks was conducted for the most part by untrained CCC enrollees who simply documented the location and size of features. At Pere Marquette State Park a trained graduate student, with the assistance of CCC enrollee George Maynard, worked 12 weeks in the field to document and excavate prehistoric remains that were unearthed by CCC workers digging the foundation for a park lodge building. Sadly, according to the article in Illinois Antiquity, most of the artifacts have been misplaced in the years since they were unearthed in the 1930s. Reportedly, the only significant artifacts from the site are those uncovered during the initial discovery and excavation by the workers who were building the lodge structure. Not surprisingly, the same is true of the work at New Salem. In one of the articles that appeared in the September 2008 issue of Illinois Antiquity, Robert Mazrim noted that “very unfortunately, there is no evidence of any systematic attempt to record and retrieve artifacts during this period, and very few archaeological objects survive.” Mazrim goes on to describe the CCC’s archeological work at New Salem as “a mixed blessing,” because while the work reconstructed a 19th century village that was once home to future president Abraham Lincoln, the work obliterated much of the original town site and the artifacts that were collected have largely been lost or are not particularly useful because of sloppy documentation. (For my part, I don’t blame the CCC enrollees for these sorts of mistakes. The work of the CCC enrollees everywhere, no matter what the work, was only as good as the foremen and supervisors who were in charge of the project. If blame must be placed, let it fall at the feet of those where were in charge at the time.) For a list of Illinois CCC camps you can visit the CCC Legacy website, HERE. For the section of the U.S. Forest Service administrative history of the CCC that includes information on work in Illinois, click HERE. The April 20, 1935 issue of Happy Days reported on the death of Don Rutherford, an enrollee in Company 613, Marseilles, Illinois, killed while working in a “sand pit.” Just four months later, (August 10, 1935) Happy Days reported on the death of Guy Ellsworth Lagg, an enrollee in Company 639 at Camp Skokie Valley. Lagg was reportedly killed by lighting. The November 2, 1935 issue of Happy Days reported on the death of Mess Steward Cordell Gibson. Gibson, a member of Company 3676 at Lawrenceville, Illinois, was killed in a car crash. As always, the state CCC camp map was taken from a larger map in Cohen’s Tree Army. I simply isolated Illinois and highlighted the camp locations to make it easier to read. To get an idea of the plan and scope of the State-By-State series, read the initial post here.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: Delaware

The state of Delaware was situated in the 2nd Corps area along with New Jersey and New York. In Roosevelt’s Forest Army, hidden about halfway through his rundown of CCC work in Delaware, Perry Merrill tosses out a unique factoid that sets Delaware apart from all other states and territories. Basically, Merrill notes that Delaware was the last state to get CCC camps. Evidently, the purchase of just over 1,000 acres for the Redden State Forest cleared the way for establishment of CCC camps so the first Delaware camp wasn’t established until October 1933 during the second enrollment period. That first camp, Camp S-53-D was quickly occupied by Company 2233V, company of World War I veterans who were moved from a project in nearby Vermont. So, while the total available information about the CCC in Delaware may be limited, there will always be that one interesting statistic: Delaware was the last state to have CCC camps.

(Now, here’s a question to ponder. It has long been thought that CCC camps were numbered in the order that they were established within each state. Thus, the first camp to be established in Delaware would be S-1-D, or so one would assume. Why was Delaware’s first camp numbered “53”? I’ve no idea but thought it would be an interesting question to toss out there.)

The State of Delaware has a scanned image of typewritten song lyrics penned by an enrollee at a CCC camp in Lewes, Delaware. The website notes that Delaware’s CCC camps were located in Lewes, Magnolia, Leipsic, Georgetown, Slaughter Beach, Frederica and Wyoming and that one of the main projects of the CCC was construction of drainage ditches for mosquito control.

There is one blog entry about the CCC at the State of Delaware’s blog site and you can view it here. It’s a neat little piece about mosquito control.

Merrill notes that the maximum number of CCC camps to operate in Delaware was 8 and that all but one (the aforementioned Camp S-53-D) were soil conservation and mosquito control camps. Even for its small size, an average of 5,382 Delaware men were given employment because of the CCC.

If we compare Merrill’s camp total against the Annual Reports for fiscal years 1937 and 1939 we find that between July 1936 and June 1937 Delaware had 1 state forest camp, 4 mosquito control camps, 2 agricultural engineering camps and 1 military reservation camp for a total of 8 camps. For the same period between 1938 and 1939 Delaware only had 4 CCC camps, broken out as follows: 1 state forest camp, 1 biological survey camp, and 2 agricultural engineering camps.

Delaware’s overall specific project totals (cited in Merrill’s Forest Army) include:
Trees Planted: 274,000
Channel Cleaning/Flood Control: 12,682,774 square yards
Forest Stand Improvement: 692 acres
Mosquito Control: 52,874 acres

In the state forests of Delaware, CCC enrollees worked at establishing forest boundaries through surveying and marking, construction of truck trails, timber salvage, collection of seedlings, reducing fire hazards and reforestation. A section of forest called the Red Lion Tract was donated to the state of Delaware in 1930, but it wasn’t until the arrival of the CCC that work was begun to reforest the acreage with loblolly pine, shortleaf pine and Scotch pine.

The Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work for fiscal year 1937 lists the monthly totals for enrollment in Delaware as follows:
July 1936: 485
August 1936: 437
September 1936: 336
October 1936: 405
November 1936: 387
December 1936: 369
January 1937: 421
February 1937: 408
March 1937: 319
April 1937: 334
May 1937: 285
June 1937: 254
These monthly totals reflect the number of young men who enrolled in the state of Delaware, not the total number of CCC boys working in the state of Deleware.

If we drill down a bit deeper into the state-by-state numbers in the 1937 Annual Report we’ll find that Delaware gained the following improvements between July of 1936 and June of 1937:
Vehicle bridges: 2
Sewer lines: 1,183 linear feet
Field planting/seeding: 33 acres
Fire hazard reduction (“Road & Trailside”): 6.7 miles
Fire hazard reduction (“Other”): 293.0 Acres
Mosquito control: 7,234 man days

The CCC Legacy maintains a camp listing and the entry for Delaware is reasonably short. The CCC Legacy list shows the following companies operated in Delaware on the dates indicated:
Co. 1224, November 1933 at Lewes, DE, Camp P-51
Co. 1224, April 1936 at Lewes, DE Camp MC-51
Co. 1226, November 1933 at Milford, DE, Camp P-51
Co. 1226, April 1936 at Milford, DE, Camp MC-52
Co. 1293, January 1936 at Georgetown, DE, Camp S-53
Co. 1295, July 1935 at Dover, DE, Camp MC-54
Co. 2213V, July, 1935 at Ft. DuPont, DE, Camp Army-1
Co. 3220, September 1935 at Georgetown, DE, Camp D-2/SCS-2
Co. 3221, October 1935 at Clayton, DE, Camp MC-55
Co. 3222, October 1935 at Wyoming, DE, Camp D-1
Co. 3269C, April 1938 at Dover, DE, Camp BS-1

The camp/company listings at the CCC Legacy website are simply representative and have been taken from the various camp strength listings for dates throughout the lifespan of the CCC.

The February 3, 1940 issue of Happy Days reported the death of a Delaware CCC enrollee from Company 3220, hit by an automobile. The microfilm image is poor; his first name was Dante and his last name looks like Corbyons.

The map image was taken from Stan Cohen's The Tree Army and highlights added to make it easier to read. To read the initial entry in the State-By-State series, click here.

The C.C.C. State-By-State: California

California, state number five in our state-by-state tour of the CCC, is another state that garnered a good deal of space in Perry Merrill’s book Roosevelt’s Forest Army, originally published in 1981. California had a lot of CCC camps. Merrill reports that in 1937 for example, there were 101 camps in California, divided as follows between the various technical services: 50 National Forest camps, 15 State Park camps, 11 National Park camps, 10 Private Forest camps, 9 Soil Conservation Service camps, 3 Division of Grazing camps, 1 Bureau of Reclamation camp and 1 Military Reservation camp.
In nearly a decade of work, the CCC accounted for some $25.6 million in allotments to dependents and for that money, enrollees built 306 lookout towers and houses, strung 8,704 miles of telephone wire, built over a million miles of truck trails and minor roads and performed tree and plant disease control on nearly 800,000 acres of land, among countless other projects. (Again, these figures are cited in detail in Merrill’s Roosevelt’s Forest Army.)

The 1937 Annual Report of the Director of Emergency Conservation Work reported the monthly enrollment numbers for California for fiscal year 1937 as follows:

July 1936: 10,150
August 1936: 9,048
September 1936: 7,961
October 1936: 8, 565
November 1936: 7,966
December 1936: 7,474
January 1937: 8,759
February 1937: 8,225
March 1937: 6,118
April 1937: 7,826
May 1937: 6,951
June 1937: 6,086

These figures represent the monthly enrollment totals for California, not the total number of enrollees working in California.

California is located in U.S. Forest Service Region 9 and the Forest Service’s history of the Civilian Conservation Corps includes an entire section devoted to work in California, which you can access here.

Reportedly, the largest single undertaking by the CCC in California is the Ponderosa Way, an 800-mile long firebreak and truck trail cut through the Stanislas National Forest. The Forest Service history includes reference to this massive project:

The project, first proposed by the regional forester in 1929, was made possible only by the extra labor provided by the CCC. On July 21, 1933, Show told national forest supervisors in the proposed Ponderosa Way areas about his plan to construct “a real fire line with a truck trail along it down the length of the Sierra and the north Coast Range located near the lower edge of the present timber lands.

In 2009 the Forest Service sponsored a Passport in Time project that put volunteers in the Ponderosa Way region with metal detectors to see what sorts of artifacts they could unearth. The results of the survey and recovery of artifacts might be characterized as a mixed bag. A brief write up by a USFS archaeologist, Stacy Lundgren states in part: “While some of the artifacts had little to do with the Ponderosa way and more to do with 1950s-era household trash, enough items were located to tell us we were on the right track. Historic maps and aerial photographs provided the clues to where to look and our volunteers provided the enthusiasm and dedication in the looking itself. This project was just the beginning in the planned documentation and interpretation of this significant resource.”

The history of fire suppression by the CCC is certainly nothing new and California had its share of fires to be fought, both forest fires and structure fires. I’m blessed in that I have corresponded with lots of former CCC enrollees over the years and one gentleman who’s been a font of information pertaining to CCC camps throughout California is Gordon Anderson. Gordie wrote to me some time back regarding a particular fire that occurred while he was assigned to the CCC camp at Big Basin, California. Here it is in his words:
While I was stationed in Big Basin, I was attached to the Forestry Fire Station in Felton, California just down the road – car fires, structure fires, and one forest fire – the Mountain Charlie Gulch Fire. That one was arson, started by an old guy riding a mule up the canyon and throwing lighted newspaper into the brush as he rode. He was spotted by a forestry plane, so when he rode out at the head end of the canyon, we were waiting for him. We took him back to the fire camp, gave him a drink, food, and a shovel and put him to work on the line – no rest, no relief. After two straight shifts of being booted onto his feet whenever he sat down, and full exposure to the fun of fighting fire, we turned him over to the sheriff, who wasn’t much more friendly than we were!

Gordie also recounted many humorous incidents that occurred during his time in the CCC in California. One incident involved an effort to establish a new pit latrine for the camp. Gordie wrote:
Dynamite figured in several of our little adventures – we used a lot of it. One of the messier ones: Our old privy had been there for several years and was plenty full, so the camp crew dug a new one just up the hill from the old one. The soil in those hills isn’t very absorbent, so the foreman handed a couple of the new boys a case of 40% and told them to load and shoot the hole to open it up for drainage, so they did and used the entire case! Unfortunately, they didn’t listen too closely to what he said and they loaded the wrong hole – the old one! When that blast when off it spread a thick layer of crap over the whole camp and believe me, it didn’t smell like no rose garden either! It still had a fairly strong perfume when we transferred out of there to Empire Meadows in Yosemite, several months later.

Gordie also commented on the impact the CCC experience had on him personally: I am sure that the experience in the CCC helped me a lot in later years; taught me how to obey orders (even if I thought they were stupid) and surely helped me to learn from my experiences. For instance, I learned not to sleep under a truck. On the Red Hill Fire, we were relieved, fed and I grabbed a blanket to get some rest. I flaked out under a truck and corked off and when I awoke, the truck was gone – never heard a thing. Fortunately, the Lord was with me that time. My brain certainly wasn’t!

The website of the Conference of California Historical Societies includes a brief nod to the work of the CCC.

There’s a very nice series of web pages devoted to the work of the CCC in California, over at the California State Parks website. The site has multiple components and links to photos, brochures and other items of interest. There is also a list of featured state parks that includes La Purisima Mission, Big Basin Redwoods and Mount Diablo.

The true total number of enrollees killed while in the CCC may never be known. The CCC newspaper Happy Days reported some of the fatalities, but certainly not all of them. A current ongoing project of mine has been to gather data on CCC fatalities so I’ll close with a tidbit or two regarding CCC fatalities in California. One of the first CCC fatalities in California, as reported in Happy Days, was that of Cecil Loomis who was evidently killed when a CCC truck collided with an automobile. Cecil’s death was reported in the February 3rd edition of Happy Days. And it was just a couple months later that an enrollee by the name of Jones was crushed when the cement mixer he was helping move slipped off the truck, crushing young Jones to death

If you’d like to get some background on the purpose and scope of the State-By-State series, you can read the initial entry by clicking here.

As with all the posts in the State-By-State series the camp location map was taken from Cohen's Tree Army and the camp locations highlighted. All photos are from the USFS and appear in Cohen's Tree Army except the image of the snow covered CCC camp, which is an image of the Big Basin CCC camp provided by Gordie Anderson.