The work of the Civilian Conservation Corps lives all around us.

BY DWIGHT YOUNG

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For my money, one of the highlights of the recent National Preservation Conference in Denver was played out before a small audience in a windowless, totally nondescript meeting room at a downtown hotel. At a session sponsored by the National New Deal Preservation Association (NNDPA), executive director Kathy Flynn introduced some special guests: a handful of veterans of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps.

Some of these men were a bit stooped of shoulder, a bit unsure of step. Even so, standing around in their plaid shirts and windbreakers, they exuded the easy confidence that comes from decades of familiarity with the heft of a hammer, the heady perfume of fresh-cut lumber. Watching them, listening to them reminisce about the experiences they had shared 60-plus years ago, I got goose bumps.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was a New Deal agency created by the Roosevelt administration to provide employment for young unmarried men whose families were on relief. The CCC was run primarily by the War Department—and it showed: Recruits lived in military-style tents or barracks, wore blue denim uniforms, were roused by an early-morning bugle call, lined up for calisthenics and inspection, and followed strict camp rules. They worked a 40-hour week and were paid $30 a month, $25 of which was sent directly to their families back home. When the program started in 1933, officials predicted that 250,000 "boys" would enroll; by the time it ended in 1942, more than 3,000,000 men had sweated their way through a CCC hitch.

In this age of instantaneous global everything, it's hard to imagine the impact of the corps on the lives of its workers. After stuffing some clothes into a bag and saying goodbye to families and girlfriends, they boarded buses or trains—a very big deal for the many enrollees who had never traveled far from home. One veteran in Denver described what happened at the end of the trip: "All of a sudden the train stopped. Somebody said it was Idaho, but it looked like the middle of nowhere to me. 'This is it,' they told us. So we asked, 'This is what?' And they said, 'This is your camp. All you have to do is build it.'"

So they built their camps—more than 4,000 of them, in every state in the Union—and then went on to plant trees and clear trails, restore dilapidated historic buildings, lay out public campgrounds and flower beds, and build dams and park shelters and furniture and footbridges and just about anything else that could be crafted out of wood or stone or dirt.

During its relatively brief heyday, the corps picked up several nicknames. People impressed by its reforestation efforts spoke of the CCC as "Roosevelt's Tree Army," while others who considered the whole thing a silly boondoggle sneered at recruits as "shovel-leaners." Kathy Flynn calls the corps "the Cs"—an affectionate shorthand title for an outfit that reshaped huge swaths of the American landscape.

They accomplished a staggering amount of work—some state park systems owe their very existence to the CCC—and many of the rustic log and stone structures they built display craftsmanship that rises to sheer artistry. Today, the handiwork of the CCC is all around us, but it's largely overlooked. Hikers puffing up the trails in Glacier National Park in Montana, campers in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, motorists on the Skyline Drive in Virginia, guests at Indian Lodge in Davis Mountains State Park in Texas, concertgoers at the Red Rocks Amphitheater outside Denver—these and millions of other people from coast to coast are beneficiaries of the ccc. Groups like the NNDPA are striving to give this legacy the recognition and preservation it deserves.

That day in Denver, I had to leave the session to rush off somewhere, so I didn't get to talk with those veterans of the Cs. But I know what I would have said to them, and I'm glad to have this opportunity to say it now: Thanks, guys.

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