Grazing Service / Division of Grazing Sites

CCC Camp Frederick Butte (DG 68) was one of seven Civilian Conservation Corps camps established in Oregon to work with the US Grazing Service in the implementation of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. The Taylor Act created grazing districts as a means to regulate use of public lands by Western ranchers with the goal of improving livestock management and the management of watersheds. CCC enrollees arrived at Frederick Butte in Deschutes County in 1937. As with other DG - or Public Domain Grazing - designated camps, the CCC men planted grasses, eliminated pests believed detrimental to the rangeland, managed the...

From 1934 to 1942, CCC Camp Gap Ranch operated in Harney County under the direction of the US Grazing Service, the precursor to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Enrollees at this 200-person Civilian Conservation Corps provided labor on projects designed to manage range land. As noted in a BLM brochure, this included building range improvements such as fences and reservoirs, drilling wells, building roads, and cutting large quantities of juniper posts for fencing projects. CCC Camp Gap Ranch (DG-5) was one of seven Civilian Conservation Corps camps established in Oregon to work with the US Grazing Service in the implementation...

In the  winter of 1935, members of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) #1629 began construction of camp administrative and barracks buildings near Squaw Butte to facilitate CCC work related to the 16,000 acre Squaw Butte Federal Experimental Range Station. Today some of those building survive to support work at the North Great Basin Experimental Range Station and continued research on the ecology and  management of rangelands. CCC Company #2504 arrived in October 1936 to further the work associated with the Squaw Butte Experiment Station and its efforts to improve grazing conditions in this very dry, sagebrush area of Harney County, Oregon. The...

President Roosevelt signed an executive order on December 21, 1936 to establish the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in Lake County, Oregon. This area served the largest, remaining pronghorn antelope herd in the United States. Comprised of Hart Mountain and the surrounding desert range, the 215,516 acre refuge included property purchased from private owners as well as land in the public domain. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees helped establish management of the antelope refuge through work conducted over several years. CCC Camp Hart Mountain operated from 1937 through 1939. CCC enrollees constructed new roads and improved the existing one, laid-out horse and...

As noted on the sign for the Northern Great Basin Experimental Range today, the research station was "established in 1936, (and) dedicated to research on the ecology and management of rangelands." At its inception, the research facility was known as the Squaw Butte Federal Range Experiment Station. The project was a joint effort of the Grazing Service of the Department of Interior and researchers from Oregon State University to address issues of range and livestock management. The federal Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 had brought Western public domain lands together in an effort to stabilize the livestock industry and improve range...