US Forest Service (USFS) Sites

In 1933, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from Camp Agness began construction of a road between Gold Beach and Agness, following the south bank of the Rogue River. Forest management work in what was then the Rogue River National Forest (now the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest) required such extensive road building efforts. Before construction of the Agness Road (NF-33), all access to the forest came via the river. To begin building, a Clectrac tractor, trucks, compressors, graders, lumber, pipe and other supplies needed to be brought up river by boat. The 35-miles of National Forest #33 between Gold Beach and Agness...

Alder Creek Forest Camp was among the projects that enrollees from Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Nestucca undertook during its operation from 1934 to 1941. Located on the Nestucca River, approximately seventeen miles from Beaver, Oregon, the recreation site is now operated by the Bureau of Land Management. A 1940 article in the Oregonian listed it among the opportunities that Portlanders had to "get away from in all" within a one hundred mile radius of the city. The newspaper described it by noting that it provided opportunities for hunting and fishing and had campsites and stoves. At the time, it offered...

The New Deal gave a huge boost to the development of Alta Ski Resort in the 1930s and early 1940s.  The work involved the US Forest Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Alta is the second or third oldest downhill ski resort in the United States. It began when the last silver mine closed in the Great Depression and the bankrupt owner deeded land to the U.S. Forest Service in lieu of back taxes. It is not clear who thought of creating a ski resort there, since miners had been skiing the canyon for years. In 1935, the Forest Service hired...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped to develop the recreation facilities in the Anthony Lakes Recreation Area, which encompasses a handful of small lakes in the Elkhorn Range of the Blue Mountains of NE Oregon. CCC work in the area probably includes the campground, picnic area, picnic shelter, rock fireplaces, trails and a former guard station.  The picnic shelter is classic CCC rustic construction, as is the guard station. The latter sites are verified by a plaque on the shelter and online sources on the station.  But sources on the CCC work in the area are virtually non-existent; further confirmation is needed. Anthony...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) had a camp at Steamboat Creek from 1933 to 1941. It was a US Forest Service camp serving Umpqua National Forest.  The enrollees made many improvements along the North Umpqua River, including campgrounds, trails and bridges. One of the campgrounds developed by the CCC was Apple Creek along the North Umpqua River and Highway 138.  It is a small, plain campground without special features. Apple Creek Campground was closed when we visited in 2022, probably a carryover from the pandemic. The entrance sign is covered in black plastic, which may be protection against winter deterioration, but the...

The New Deal helped construct the 9-mile road from Fort Valley Road (Highway 180) to the Arizona Snow Bowl ski area on Mt. Agassiz in the San Francisco Peaks, northwest of Flagstaff AZ. In the winter of 1938, the 20-30 Club, a Flagstaff service group, held a "snow carnival" on the southwest slope of Mt. Agassiz. It was so successful that the group ran a contest to choose a name for the area, and "Arizona Snow Bowl" was selected. The Coconino National Forest managers saw the opportunity to help advance the ski resort and offered to build a better access road up...

With Proclamation 2175, June 15, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Bienville National Forest in Mississippi.  This proclamation was part of FDR’s overall effort to create more national forests in the eastern United States. As with other national forests, the goal of Bienville was “to produce the greatest amount of good for the most people… Fire protection gives the timber a chance to grow so as to produce a merchantable crop; trees are being planted where former logging practise (sic) did not leave the land in a condition to re-seed itself; grazing will be regulated so as to coordinate...

The U.S. Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps built the Briceburg Bridge in Midpines CA. "FOREST SERVICE PLANS BRIDGE AT BULL CREEK Work is being rushed on the new bridge across the Merced River at Briceburg which is being built by the U.S. Forest Service. J. W. Nute, forest service engineer, is here from San Francisco and is in charge of the construction. The bridge is a 160-foot span supported by four one and a fourth inch cables and hangers of iron. Two 25-foot towers support the cables. An interesting feature of this new bridge is the use of steel beams instead of trusses...

Interest in winter sports, particularly skiing, grew in Oregon during the 1920s. Given the Willamette National Forest (WNF) management's commitment to recreation and the availability of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) labor, US Forest Service Staff worked with local outdoor groups such as Eugene's Obsidian Club to identify locations within the forest for ski areas as early as 1934. The White Branch Recreational Area was  one of the first such projects. A survey crew from CCC Camp Belknap located land for the White Branch project and CCC enrollees began work in the summer of 1934. They built a two-story lodge, ski and...

The Union Creek Historic District on the upper Rogue River in Union Creek, Oregon, is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places because it is a fine representative of a type of rustic resort popular in the early 20th century and has been little altered since the 1930s.  There are almost one hundred buildings and other facilities in the Union Creek Historic District, almost all of which conform to the Forest Service plans of the 1920s and 30s.  Roughly a third were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from 1933 to 1942, working out of the Upper...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), working out of the Steamboat CCC Camp under the US Forest Service built four campgrounds nearby, including Canton Creek.  The campgrounds were all built sometime between 1933 and 1941, probably earlier than later in this case. Canton Creek campground has a picnic structure, or gazebo, that looks to be CCC and remains in good condition. Unfortunately, Canton Creek campground was closed when we visited and the entrance sign rather rudely covered with a plastic garbage bag. That appears to be a carryover of the pandemic or it might be winter protection. The settlement of Steamboat has long since...

Located adjacent to Cape Creek at the foot of Cape Perpetua, the Cape Perpetua Campground occupies the former site of the first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in this part of the Siuslaw National Forest. A small crew of CCC workers lived here in 1933 while constructing the nearby, more permanent Cape Creek CCC Camp. CCC enrollees from Cape Creek went on to develop the site for public camping as part of a plan to increase tourist activity in the area. The CCC improvements made a significant impact on tourist use of the Cape Perpetua area. This success was anticipated in...

After the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp in 1933 at the foot of Cape Perpetua, the young men began to develop the area currently known as the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area for public recreational use.  Their projects included a campground, a network of trails, the West Shelter observation point near the top of the cape, and a roadway to that elevation. Located in the Siuslaw National Forest, Cape Perpetua was among the first areas identified in Oregon for CCC work. In addition to the usual reforestation and conservation assignments associated with US Forest Service land, recreational development became a...

Working under the supervision of the US Forest Service, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from Camp Hebo cleared and prepared the site for the future Castle Rock Group Campground. Clearing took place in a forested area on the banks of Three Rivers. The current group campground was developed at a later time.

Among the first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps located in southwestern Oregon, Camp Agness offered a challenge to its first group of enrollees when they arrived in May 1933 to work on projects in the Siskiyou National Forest (#F-45). There were no roads into the area so access was provided by a 32-mile boat up the Rogue River. Historian William Lansing suggests that "it probably was one of the most difficult camps to reach in the nation . . . It would retain that reputation until the roads to Gold Beach and to Powers were completed some years later by...

North Higgins Lake State Park near Roscommon MI is built on what was once the world's largest seedling nursery, established by the Michigan State Forester in 1903.   December 5, 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp at Higgins Lake, briefly on the Hanson Military Reservation and then on US-27 midway between Roscommon and Grayling. The camp operated from 1933-42, and a big part of the CCC activities was forest-related, planting trees and fighting forest fires across the northern part of the state.  The Higgins Lake tree nursery and CCC camp were central to this effort. By 1942, when the CCC ended,...

Once located approximately 35 miles southwest of Medford in the Rogue River National Forest, Camp Applegate operated as a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp from 1933 until 1941. Oregon enrollees worked at Camp Applegate (F-41) on US Forest Service projects until 1937 when recruits arrived from southern states, primarily Alabama. Projects completed by Camp Applegate workers included the construction of an extensive truck trail system for forest management purposes. Thompson Ridge Road, Little Applegate Road, Middle Fork Road and the Beaver Creek - Mount Ashland Loop are among those fire roads built by CCC enrollees. While members of the CCC...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Baker (F-113) was established in April 1935 and closed in August 1941. It functioned under the direction of the US Army with project supervision by the US Forest Service. The enrollees worked primarily within the Whitman National Forest on forest management practices, construction and maintenance of roads and trails, stringing telephone lines, and conducting campground and range improvements. Camp Baker often supplied workers to side camps in the Whitman National Forest during the summer months and then CCC enrollees would return to Camp Baker for the winter. When Camp Baker prepared to close in 1941, the Baker...

Contributing improvements in forest management and recreation development, CCC Camp Belknap operated in the Willamette National Forest for five years. From spring 1933 to summer 1938, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees strung phone lines through the forest, and constructed roads and trails. They built lookouts and guard stations with water systems, and fought several major fires. They opened new parts of the forest to camping and other recreation opportunities, building campgrounds, picnic areas, and ski lodges and ski runs. Perhaps the most distinctive of the projects completed by Camp Belknap's "CCC boys" is the Dee Wright Observatory near McKenzie Pass. Although...

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...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Boyington served a company of CCC enrollees within the first year of the New Deal. Construction began on the camp outside of Astoria, near the unincorporated town of Olney, in October 1933. The company of 200 "tree troopers" arrived within months of the historic Tillamook Burn that occurred in the summer of 1933. The CCC enrollees provided management and firefighting services on private forest land in the northern Oregon Coast Range. The 1937 report of the Vancouver Barracks CCC District noted that the Company was identified as "a peak camp" by 1935 when its Company number changed from...

The Brice Creek Civilian Conservation (CCC) Camp was established north of Layng Creek in the Umpqua National Forest in the spring of 1933. Company #731, the first company to occupy the camp comprised of enrollees from Kansas. Later CCC workers came from Illinois and Oregon to provide support primarily to the lumber industry. As noted on the commemorative plaque located at the nearby Rujada Forest Camp: "The CCC enrollees of Camp Brice Creek planted trees and maintained roads, trails, telephone lines and buildings. They fought forest fires and built fire lookouts - Fairview Peak, Holland Point, and the still-standing, Musick Guard Station,...

From late May 1936 through 1941, several Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Companies worked in Grant County, Oregon on projects for management of the Malheur National Forest. At various times, Companies #929, #943, #1231, #2110, and #6417 were housed at CCC Camp Canyon Creek, which was sixteen miles south of John Day on Canyon Creek, immediately adjacent to Highway 395. By the conclusion of their work at the beginning of World War II, the CCC workers had built fences, lookout towers, cattle guards, corrals, two new campgrounds (Idlewild and Wickiup) and maintained fourteen other Forest Service camps as well as improved...

On April 5th, 1933, the day that the executive order forming the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was signed, officials of the U.S. Forest Service announced that they would select land near Cape Perpetua for one of the largest of the CCC camps in the Siuslaw National Forest. The site selected was approximately two miles south of Yachats just east of US Highway 101 on the banks of Cape Creek. Construction of the camp began in June 1933 with a crew of twenty-five local CCC recruits. With its completion, the number of CCC workers residing at Cape Creek Camp grew to...

From 1934 through 1941, with the exception of 1938, there was a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Coverdale in Wallowa County during the summer months. The name Camp Coverdale (F-102), however, was applied to multiple locations. Although this is unusual, it reflects contemporary practices in the Wallowa National Forest (WNF). From the beginning of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933, regional representatives of the US Forest Service argued that the WNF's needs warranted two CCC camps for summer work. Due to the rugged terrain of the WNF and the significant need for road building through it, Forest Service administrators recommended that...

From mid-June 1933 to late October of that same year, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 1305 occupied CCC Camp Crane Flats. As was common with CCC companies, the enrollees traveled to a number of camps as the U.S. Forest service determined their appropriate assignment. After their work during the fire season of 1933, Company 1305, which had originated in Fort George Mead, Maryland, traveled on to southwestern Oregon and ultimately camps within the Medford District. Given their brief stay at this Umatilla National Forest site, it is not surprising that there is little to indicate the CCC camp's history at Crane...

In October 1933, a company of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees arrived at the recently completed CCC Camp Devil's Flat in Azalea OR. From that date to April 1935, enrollees of Company #1305 built roads and fought fires in the Umpqua National Forest. The young men, primarily from Oregon, excelled in their work as "fire eaters" and gained recognition by earning the District Flag. The company of approximately 200 moved on in the spring of 1935, relocating to CCC Camp South Umpqua Falls. Today the remains of the CCC camp is limited to a couple of fire hydrants that had been...

In 1933, Company 832 of the Civilian Conservation Corps built CCC Camp F-17-W at Chimney Park in Wyoming’s Medicine Bow National Forest. CCC enrollees at the Chimney Park camp worked on ranger stations, trails, and roads in addition to establishing and measuring timber research plots. Some of the CCC enrollees went on to study forestry in college following their service. One sent a letter to the U.S. Senate that was cited in government discussions of deforestation in 1971 (“Statement of Hon. Teno Roncalio”).   Camp F-17-W operated continuously until July 20, 1942 and was one of the last CCC camps to close...

Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) worked in Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake County, Utah from 1935 to 1942.  The corps established a camp, F-38, at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon, which  housed Company 3340 throughout that period.   Company 3340 worked under the direction of the US Forest Service. The hundreds of CCC enrollees assigned to camp F-38 made many improvements to recreational facilities along the Wasatch Front east of Salt Lake City, including work in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Little Cottonwood Canyon and Mill Creek Canyon. They built trails, roads, bridges, campgrounds, shelters, ski facilities, amphitheaters and more,...

Organized in 1933 and operating through at least 1937, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Fall Creek Camp was the home to Company #965, accommodating approximately 200 enrollees. The site of the camp was covered by a reservoir in 1964-1966. The nearby Clark Creek Organization Camp, ten miles to the east on Fall Creek, is one of the largest projects completed by workers from Fall Creek Camp. A plaque at Clark Creek Organization Camp honors the work of the Fall Creek Camp CCC enrollees, saying: "While on the Willamette National Forest, (they) built the Fall Creek Road and bridges, the Fall Creek trail,...

Among the earliest of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camps in Oregon, Camp Hebo (occasionally referred to as Camp Mt Hebo) was established in the spring of 1933 and remained active until 1936. Without the benefit of a permanent campground, the earliest enrollees arrived from Chicago to tent living and quickly learned about the rain and mud of the Oregon Coast Range's western slope. Despite difficult living conditions, the 220 young men of Company 622 went to work under the management of rangers from the Siuslaw National Forest on a variety of tasks required for the forest's management, including building...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Hilgard was built during the summer of 1935 to serve as a winter camp for CCC enrollees that had worked on projects in the higher elevations of the Wallowa National Forest. From that time through 1941, Camp Hilgard (P-215) served as one of the largest and most significant of the CCC camps in northeastern Oregon. For the majority of that time, however, Camp Hilgard enrollees worked on forest management projects supervised by the Oregon State Forester designed to benefit private forest land. The local newspaper, The Observer, provided a summary of the enrollees' activities in 1938, noting:...

From May to October 1933, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Imnaha operated just outside the community of Imnaha in the Wallowa National Forest (WNF). Given the elevation of Imnaha (1978 ft), originally CCC administration anticipated keeping a year-around camp at this location. That was re-evaluated, however, based on winter conditions, its remote location. and the nature of their work. Early in the history of the CCC in Oregon, the enrollees of CCC Camp Imnaha (F-1) were put to work building a single-track road from Imnaha to the lookout at Hat Point, approximately twenty-four miles distance and a nearly 5000 foot rise...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees arrived in the Siuslaw National Forest (SNF) in 1933. Camp Mapleton, one of the early camps located there, was established in late June 1933 on the Smith River before being moved three months later to its site one mile south of the town of Mapleton. The enrollees went to work building roads and truck trails. The Burton report on Eugene District camps listed Mapleton enrollees' projects, including: "a road to be built toward Roman Nose; a road to be built up Vincent Creek toward Scottsburg; and a continuation of the Smith River road." They also...

In 1935, Benton County authorities submitted a proposal for siting a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp on Mary's Peak, the highest peak in the Coast range. They received approval that year to develop CCC Camp Mary's Peak with the goal of constructing a road to its summit for summer and winter recreational purposes. Because of its altitude (4100 ft), the camp would not operate year around and, consequently, was a spur camp of CCC Camp Nestucca. Despite its approval in 1935, it appears that road construction did not begin until 1938. The road construction project included four miles of entirely new...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Nestucca is recognized as one of five permanent CCC camps located in the Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon during the Depression. CCC Camp Nestucca's enrollees participated in many forestry projects during a period known for frequent and extensive forest fires in the region. Records mention both 1934 and 1935 as the camp's date of establishment. The other permanent camps in the Siuslaw National Forest included CCC Camps Cape Creek, Hebo, Mapleton and Angell. In addition to fire fighting, CCC enrollees from Camp Nestucca built roads and trails for forest management, strung telephone lines to improve communication,...

Members of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) #1258 arrived at CCC Camp Saddle Mountain near Seaside and Cannon Beach OR in the summer of 1935. The majority of the Company's enrollees were from New York. Although the CCC workers occupied tents upon their arrival, they began construction of bunkhouses, recreational halls, officers' quarters and other camp buildings. With the camp's completion, the encampment grew to its full strength of 200 men. Located near what was then the Nehalem Highway (now US Hwy 26), the camp's site was rented by the state to the federal government. Improvement of that land for Oregon State Park...

Beginning in October 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) located a camp near the unincorporated town of Gibbon at Squaw Creek (Iskuulpa Creek), twenty miles east of Pendleton. As a Soil Conservation Service (SCS) camp between 1935 and 1937, Camp Squaw Creek enrollees engaged primarily in project work to stabilize the soil. Local historian Dorys Crow Grover reports that the enrollees were required to take a three-month course in soil conservation to support their work. In 1937, however, the US Forest Service took control of the CCC Camp Squaw Creek and project work changed accordingly. Under the SCS, project work included...

From 1935 through May 1941, the area now occupied by the Trask River County Campground served as the site of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Trask. The enrollees stationed at the camp worked primarily on truck trail construction and other activities related to "fire hazard reduction" on private forest land. As described in the Vancouver Barracks report (1937): "Camp Trask is built in a grove of fir and spruce trees on the bank of the river and affords a very attractive site. The buildings are arranged into a square, with parade grounds and flagpole in the center. Electric lights are provided...

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...