Fish & Wildlife Service (FSW) Sites

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) completed work at the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge (also called Back Bay Migratory Waterfowl Refuge). The work was completed at this site by the CCC unit that resided at the nearby, but completely inland, Camp Pungo in what is now Virginia Beach. The original work extended from the Life-Saving/Coast Guard Station at Dam Neck, Virginia to the border with North Carolina well beyond its purchased property. Its most significant creation was the efforts to create a primary dune along the coast of Virginia to fashion an environment to protect wildfowl. Few original structures are remaining of...

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...

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon was expanded in two steps under the New Deal.  In 1935 the 164,503 acre Blitzen Valley was purchased using emergency relief funds. In 1941, land west of Malheur Lake was added. The refuge was originally established as the Lake Malheur Reservation in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt from unclaimed government lands encompassing Malheur, Harney, and Mud Lakes after plume hunters had decimated the local bird population. The information brochure for Malheur NWR gives more details: "The drought years of the 1930s had a profound effect on Lake Malheur Reservation. The water levels on Harney, Malheur, and Mud...