• Ainsworth State Park - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    During 1935, Civilian Conservation Corps workers made improvements to Ainsworth State Park, thirty-six miles east of Portland on the Columbia River Highway. John C. Ainsworth, former chairman of the State Highway Commission (1931-1932) donated the original forty acres for the park in 1933. CCC enrollees worked on picnic facilities and trails in the park. Perhaps the most distinctive improvement made by CCC workers involved the stone work steps and fountain that provided public drinking access to the park's spring.
  • Angel's Rest Trail - Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area OR
    Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from Camp New Benson Park improved the Columbia River Gorge hike to Angel's Rest in 1934-1935, This involved building bridges over streams as well as grooming the trail. Angel's Rest is one of the most popular hikes in the Columbia River Gorge Scenic area, considered by many a "must" for local hikers. In 1934, a reporter for Portland's Oregon Journal stated: " Perhaps the most beautiful hike out of Benson Park is the trail to Angel's Rest, where at an elevation of 1600 feet one may see up and down the Columbia River Gorge for 50 miles." The...
  • Benson State Recreation Area (New Benson Park) - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    In 1933, the City of Portland gave permission to the federal government to establish a Civilian Conservation Camp (CCC) in its Columbia River Gorge Park. What had been Benson Park became CCC Camp Benson. Between 1933 and 1935, CCC enrollees groomed the surrounding parkland, creating the New Benson Park. Today, the lowland, timbered park serves as a day use picnic area with swimming and fishing in the park’s Benson Lake. It also serves as the western anchor to a system of trails connecting Multnomah Falls to the east and Wahkeena Falls to the south. The work of the CCC established these amenities...
  • CCC Camp Benson (former) - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    One of three Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps located in the Columbia River Gorge, CCC Camp Benson occupied what was then the City of Portland's Benson Park between 1933 and 1935. Enrollees at this early CCC camp made significant contributions to the development of recreational amenities in the Columbia River Gorge. Camp Benson provided workers for much of Eagle Creek Campground's construction in the Cascade Locks area, as well as improvements at the picnic areas at Wahkeena Falls and Benson Park itself.  Commenting on the progress of Camp Benson enrollees at Benson Park, The Oregonian reported: "Crews of CCC workers assigned to...
  • CCC Camp Wyeth / Cascade Locks (former) - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    Located approximately five to seven miles east of Cascade Locks, CCC Camp Wyeth/Cascade Locks (Camp F-7) was one of the longest operating Civilian Conservation Corps camps in the Columbia River Gorge. The US Forest Service's Wyeth Campground currently operates on the site of the former CCC facility. In the summers of 1933 and 1934, tents provided shelter for 200 enrollees put to work on road, trail and campground construction projects. In the summer of 1935, a more permanent commitment to the camp was made when construction of CCC Camp Cascade Locks began on the site located south of Wyeth Road and...
  • Eagle Creek Campground and Picnic Area - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    Although the Eagle Creek Campground opened as the first "auto camp" in the northwest region in 1915, Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) workers made significant improvements to the campground from 1934 to 1937. As early as August 1934, the Oregonian reported that "Eagle Creek Campground is being improved so it will accommodate more picnic parties, through labors of boys from the Benson CCC camp . . . ". Their work included clearing additional campground space, building fireplaces and cutting up fallen snags to create wood for campfires. Headlines from the same Portland newspaper announced later in the fall that a record number of visitors...
  • Eagle Creek Overlook Group Site - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    In 1937, CCC workers from Camp Cascade Locks began improvements on recently acquired park land to extend the Eagle Creek campground and picnic area to the shores of the Columbia. These twenty-one acres were acquired to provide access to land overlooking Bonneville Dam. This new campground and picnic area is referred to as the Eagle Creek Overlook Group Site. In addition to landscaped trails and new picnic facilities and campsites, the CCC workers built the Eagle Creek Overlook Shelter to serve as a community kitchen, picnic shelter and restroom facility. As a 1984 US Forest Service report states: "The overlook building...
  • Guy W. Talbot State Park Improvements - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    Guy W. Talbot State Park, also known as Latourell Falls State Park, entered the Oregon State Park system in 1929 when the Talbot family donated 125 acres of land adjacent to Latourell Falls. Significant development of the park, however, began in 1933 when Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from nearby CCC Camp Benson initiated work. CCC projects improved the park during the second period of the CCC (October 1933 to Arpil 1934), the third period (April to October 1934), and the fifth period (April to October 1935). As noted in a report completed in 1946 under the supervision of the Oregon State...
  • Toothrock Tunnel on Columbia River Highway - Bonneville OR
    The US Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) built the Toothrock Tunnel No. 4555  on the Columbia Gorge Highway near Bonneville, Oregon. Heading east on Interstate-84, as one approaches the Bonneville Dam, vehicles pass through an 837-foot, semicircular bore into Tooth Rock. Today, Toothrock Tunnel's artful design of basalt rockwork and concrete construction can be appreciated for its rustic, historic appearance as well as its 'natural' fit with the mountainous characteristics of the area. When plans were unveiled for it in 1935, however, it represented major improvements in modern highway design with its "skewed arch portals" fitting topographic conditions and a state-or-the-art lighting...
  • Wahkeena Falls Day Use: Picnic Area - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    The picnic area at Wahkeena Falls benefitted from the attention of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees soon after the program was rolled out in March 1933. Workers from CCC Camp Benson improved a picnic area on the north side of the Columbia River Highway at Wahkeena Falls by adding stone fireplaces, picnic tables and a community kitchen/picnic shelter. As a result, the Wahkeena Falls Picnic Area is the largest day use area on the historic Columbia River Highway. The Wahkeena Falls Community Kitchen, similar to the community kitchen at Eagle Creek, consists of post and beam construction, three to four feet...
  • Wahkeena Falls Trail - Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area OR
    Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees were brought in as early as 1933 to improve the hiking trail network in the Gorge along with their other forest management and recreation development. The Wahkeena Falls Trail was among the first to be improved, following Wahkeena Creek toward its source on the Columbia gorge rim. Another new trail, along the rim, linked Wahkeena and Multnomah Falls to allow hikers to go from one falls to the other without using the highway. In the 1920s, as part of a larger project giving Columbia River Gorge waterfalls their current names, the Mazamas (a local climbing and...