Oregon Public Broadcasting

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The men who signed up for the Depression-era jobs program built local trails and improved parks that we still use today.

The program’s alumni are now in their eighties and nineties.  Correspondent Tom Banse spoke to several who say now may be a good time to revive a version of the CCC.

U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt sits at the head of a mess table for lunch at Camp Fechner in Big Meadows, Va., one of the five Civilian Conservation Corps camps that the president visited on Aug. 12, 1933. In the background are the young men employed in the CCC program initiated by the president during the Depression.

Mortgage foreclosures, bank troubles, economic stimulus ... that’s old news to Northwesterners who grew up during the Great Depression.  Back in the 1930’s, economic stimulus included giving scads of unemployed men jobs in the woods.

President Franklin Roosevelt described what became known as the CCC in one of his “fireside chats” in 1933.

Scratchy recording of FDR: “In creating this civilian conservation corps we are killing two birds with one stone. We are clearly enhancing the value of our natural resources and at the same time, we are relieving an appreciable amount of actual distress.”

That pretty much sums it up for John Hamilton.  Back then, he was the son of a recently disabled Tacoma longshoreman. Hamilton dropped out of high school to join Roosevelt’s tree army – his parents’ mortgage on his mind.

John Hamilton: “They bought this house in 1935 for $1500 -- $15 down and $15 a month, plus the water and that.  So, where’s the money coming from? Where you’re going to eat?  What are you going to do? Even when you’re 18, you think of that. But that’s what it was.”

Hamilton worked in a road building camp in the Cascade backcountry.  He, as the others, was required to send most of his $30-a-month paycheck back home to his family.

John Hamilton: “They made a cook out of me. And then it was fighting fire.”

Another common task was tree planting – reforestation.  The young men also built trails, shelters, and overlooks for the fledgling state park systems.

Those improvements survive to this day at some of the region’s most popular parks like Silver Falls in Oregon, Deception Pass in Washington, and Heyburn State Park in Idaho.

John Hamilton: “Oh, I think it was very good.”

John Hamilton’s 18-month stint in the CCC left enough of a mark on his own self that the 86-year-old gathers monthly with other veterans of the program.

The Seattle alumni chapter president is the widow of a CCC’er.  Berniece Phelps celebrates small victories.

Berniece Phelps: “I think this month we didn’t have any deaths to report.”

A chapter in central Washington disbanded last fall because too many of its members passed on.  The national alumni association knows of only five CCC veterans still living in Idaho.

Lucius Chapman of Seattle is still hanging on at the age of 88.  He and his wife Margaret explain why Chapman’s one year in a North Cascades forest camp means so much seven decades later.

Lucius Chapman: “It made a man out of you.  You had to learn to live with other people.”

Margaret Chapman: “I think it kind of helped save that whole generation.  It’s too bad that there isn’t something that kids just out of high school can go into that will help them grow up.”

The closest things today are environmentally-oriented programs like AmeriCorps or the California Conservation Corps.

Here in the 21st century, large scale economic stimulus takes the form of $600 rebate checks.

Margaret Chapman: “That’s fine to give them money, but what they ought to do is give them jobs that they can do and that are interesting enough to keep them going.”

The original Civilian Conservation Corps lasted until 1942.  By then, most of its recruits were being drafted for World War Two.

Surviving veterans of the CCC with celebrate the program’s 75th anniversary at the scene of one of their most beloved legacies, Deception Pass State Park.  That happens Saturday, March 29th at the park’s Bowman Bay campground.

Online:

CCC in Idaho (from Idaho Public Television)

Oregon State Archives: CCC exhibit

National Association of CCC Alumni