Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Sites

Tall rock wall with periodic columns for strength that is capped with concrete. It surrounds 3 sides of a large baseball field. One of the corners has a curved façade. The structure was completed with funds and labor provided by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Civil Works Administration (CWA), and Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted extensive development work at Massachusetts's Blue Hills Reservation. Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission annual reports detail the work of the CCC over time. 1933 report: "In the latter part of June a Civilian Conservation Camp was established by the National Park Service for Emergency Conservation Work for State Parks in the Blue Hills Reservation near Randolph Avenue. The camp was in charge of U. S. Army Officers. The enlisted men in the camp varied from 212 to 145. The work of the men in the reservation has been handled by a...

"In 1935, the National Park Service created the Blue Knob National Recreation Demonstration Area to provide recreation to the people of Altoona and Johnstown. The Works Progress Administration employed local workers to build cabins, hiking trails and roads. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 2327 arrived in October of 1939. After building Camp NP-7, the young men aided in creating the park recreational facilities. World War II ended the CCC. On September 26, 1945, the National Park Service transferred Blue Knob to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and it became Blue Knob State Park." "Since the CCC years, facilities of the park have...

"The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. It runs for 469 miles (755 km), mostly along the famous Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Its southern terminus is on the boundary between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, from which it travels north to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and offers access to the Skyline Drive, the major north/south artery through the Park. The two All-American Byways are separate and distinct. The Blue Ridge...

"Blue Ridge Parkway tunnels consist of a total of 26 vehicle tunnels constructed along the 469 miles (755 km) of the Blue Ridge Parkway. One, the Bluff Mountain Tunnel, is in Virginia and twenty-five are in North Carolina. The design standards specified a minimum impact on the land. The vehicle tunnels were often constructed to reduce excessive landscape scarring that open cuts would have produced. They are used in areas of steep terrain where ridges run perpendicular to the roadway alignment. North Carolina's more rugged terrain required the majority of the tunnels. Most of the work on the tunnel digging was done by...

Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) laborers conducted grading and landscaping work on the Bluebeard Castle Hotel grounds. Improvements included the construction of additional sleeping quarters and a parking area. CCC workers also built a water storage system. "Since no well water is available it is necessary to catch all rain water which is stored in large cisterns under the buildings."    

"Among the several projects in the Virgin Islands was the Bluebeard Castle Hotel. The group of buildings was erected on the summit of a hill 200 feet above the sea. An ancient stone tower with walls 5 1/2 feet thick, is supposed to have been the watchtower of the famous legendary pirate, Bluebeard. The building on the right in the larger illustration contains the lobby, administrative offices, dining room, bar, kitchen, and service rooms. A detail of its entrance portico is illustrated on the right side of this page. Terraces planted with palms, tropical flowers, and foliage surround all the...

The historic Bluewater fire lookout tower in Lincoln National Forest was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933. NRHP Nomination Form: "Located on the Mayhill Ranger District, this 45 ft high steel tower with a 7 ft by 7 ft steel cab represents an Aermotor LX-E4 type or an International Derrick Company tower. The Forest Service records are not clear on this point. Research efforts have not been able to clarify this. It appears that while the International Derrick Company did manufacture steel towers, they did not differ much from the more common Aermotor towers. Other Forest Service records cited...

"Development of the Bly Ranger Station began in 1935 when the Forest Service acquired a 4-acre (16,000 m2) site in Bly for a district ranger station to manage the western part of the Fremont National Forest. The Forest Service paid $625 for the property. The ranger station was built by Civilian Conservation Corps workers stationed at nearby Camp Bly with the help of some experienced local men, all under the supervision of Forest Service district ranger Perry Smith. Construction was based on designs by E.U. Blanchfield, architect for the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Region. The seven original buildings at the...

“The Civilian Conservation Corps and local experienced men, under the supervision of the U.S. Forest Service, constructed the Bly Ranger Station compound between 1936 and 1942. The compound, made up of both administrative and residential buildings, continues to service and house employees of the Fremont National Forest to this day. The Bly Ranger Station compound is on the National Register of Historic Places (March 11, 1981). Historically and architecturally, the Bly Ranger Station compound is important to the community of Bly and to the residents of the Sprague River Valley. As administrative headquarters of the Bly Ranger District, it represents the...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was very active in the Coronado National Forest during the 1930s. Coronado National Forest is discontinuous across southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico because the forested areas occur only on isolated mountain ranges called "Sky Islands" – a type of landscape similar to the Basin and Range in Nevada. CCC camp F-30 was located in Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains (we are not sure exactly where or for how long).  The CCC 'boys' (enrollees) did extensive work in the canyon, including a campground, picnic area, amphitheater, trails and erosion works. One of the CCC projects...

The CCC created Bogus Basin Road, possibly with the assistance of the WPA, which eventually spurred the development of the recreation area. From the Bogus Basin ski resort website: It all started in 1938 when a 24-month WPA road project started the development of Bogus Basin as a recreation site.  A handful of Forest Service experts were called in, of which Alf Engen, founder of the Alta Ski Area in Utah played major roles in site selection.  Three years later, in September of 1941, the non-profit Bogus Basin Recreational Association (BBRA) was incorporated to raise funds and oversee the maintenance of...

"Boiling Springs State Park is a park built near Woodward, Oklahoma, by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s and named for one of the several natural springs which occur in the park... In 1935 much of the land comprising the present day park was acquired by the City of Woodward to provide a place for recreation for its citizens and visitors. Although the local “swimming hole” was already present the primary development work was accomplished by the young men of Company 2822 of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from 1935 to 1939. A monument stands in the main picnic area...

The structure was originally built as the headquarters of the Boise District of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The Boise District supervised CCC camps in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon. Currently, the building serves as a restaurant.

The Boise National Forest CCC Camp (F-78) was located near Atlanta, and left permanent structures there and in Garden Valley. From the National Forest Service: "In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Boise National Forest to protect timber and watershed resources in southwestern Idaho. The Forest Service added lookouts, campgrounds, and roads, assisted by hundreds of young men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression, Deadwood Lookout and Atlanta Ranger Station were built by the CCC—now available for overnight rental." Also from the Forest Service: "Atlanta Cabin is located in the old mining town of Atlanta, Idaho, at an...

"In 1937, 12,000 acres (49 km²), mostly tidal salt marsh stretching eight miles (13 km) along Delaware Bay, were purchased to establish the Bombay Hook Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. The land was purchased with duck stamp funds. On April 1, 1938, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) based at Leipsic, Delaware started work on the refuge. They cleared wooded swamps and built a dike to create Raymond and Shearness Pools and a causeway to separate Shearness and Finis Pools, creating three freshwater impoundments; they planted over fifty thousand trees; and they built a headquarters building, a boathouse and marine railway, an observation tower, and houses...

“As a Division of Grazing camp, project work was planned and supervised by DG personnel. The basic mission for the project work was to construct infrastructure in the Bonanza Grazing District to allow orderly management of the public rangelands. Rangelands of the Bonanza Grazing District are located on the high plateau east of Langell Valley, known today as the Gerber Block. The north and east boundaries are the Fremont National Forest and the south boundary is the Oregon-California state line and the Modoc National Forest. Most of the lands were federal public domain managed by the Division of Grazing for...

The state acquired the land for Bonham State Park in 1933 from the City of Bonham. The Civilian Conservation Corps developed the 261-acre park, landscaping the rocky, hilly terrain for erosion control and recreational purposes, and constructing an earthen dam to impound a sixty-five-acre lake. CCC Company 894 constructed buildings of local cream-colored limestone and Eastern red cedar, working under the supervision of Bonham architect Joe C. Lair and San Antonio architect William C. Caldwell. The overall design exhibits a WPA rustic style. The CCC built the entrance portal, concession building (currently the park headquarters and storage facility), waterfront storage building...

Constructed with funds and labor from the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Booker T. Washington State Park was established in 1938 as a segregated recreational facility for African Americans, the second such facility in the state of Tennessee (the other being T. O. Fuller State Park near Memphis). The park is situated on Lake Chickamauga, which was created with the construction of the Chickamauga Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The nearby Harrison Bay State Park was built at the same time for white Tennesseans. Tennessee parks were formally desegregated in 1964 with the passage of...

This camp operated out of the location of an abandoned hotel in the former mining town of Bootjack in the Mother Lode area of California. According to various articles written for the local newspaper by the camp members, tasks performed were road construction, water infrastructure, and fire fighting. In late 1936, the camp was transfered to Tehachapi. I haven't had the means of determining yet if they returned to the location, since that was hinted at in the newspaper articles by officials of the New Deal.

A multi purpose campground located in the Anza Borrego State Park on the outskirts of the small town of Borrego Springs. A timeline of the park and its development in an information kiosk at another campground says that Borrego Palm Canyon was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1936.

In 1936 the Bureau of Biological Survey (BBS) determined that Bosque del Apache site was suitable for a migratory bird refuge. Condemnation of the land was initiated through the 1931 Migratory Bird Conservation Act and concluded in December 1936. The landowner  was paid around $12/acre for about 57,000 acres. The refuge was formally established by executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939. Between 1939 and 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Work Progress Administration (WPA) sent in teams of relief workers to restore the refuge land under the guidance of the BBS, which became the US Fish &...

"The New Mexico State Park system was founded in order to tap funding and labor from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s. Bottomless Lakes State Park was the under this new system . "The CCC began work at Bottomless in 1935 and completed all projects by 1938. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), another government relief effort labor force, was also significant in this effort. Roads, trails and recreational structures were the fruits of their labor. "The primary result of the CCC effort at Bottomless Lakes State Park was a large bathhouse and pavilion at the southern-most lake at this...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was very active in the Coronado National Forest during the 1930s. Coronado National Forest is discontinuous across southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico because the forested areas occur only on isolated mountain ranges called "Sky Islands" – a type of landscape similar to the Basin and Range in Nevada. Box Canyon road is one of those projects.  It traverses the Santa Rita Mountains from roughly Green Valley and Interstate 19 on the west to Greaterville and state highway 83 on the east side of the mountains.  It is a well-maintained dirt road to this day. "The Civilian...

"The Boyce Thompson Arboretum was established in 1923. Franklin Crider, a University of Arizona botanist, managed the research unit to study soil retention by plant roots. In 1933 a small group of Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from camp F16A at Pinal Mountain was brought in to develop a plant nursery. The young men built raised beds and grew thousands of grasses and plants for range revegetation and forestry projects. Supervised by the Forest Service rangers and arboretum staff, the enrollees supplied the labor to continue the important work of soil conservation in central Arizona."

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Boykin Springs Recreation Area in 1937 and 1938. The park is set in a forest of longleaf pine trees surrounding a nine-acre man-made. spring-fed lake. In the early 1900s this area was the center of a thriving community built around the logging industry harvesting the old growth pine trees of East Texas. The loggers "clear cut" the land, and by 1920, with the trees gone, the community dissolved. The Civilian Conservation Corps arrived in the mid-1930's, replanted pine trees in the area and built several recreation areas such as Boykin Springs.

The park remained largely unimproved until the mid-1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps boys arrived (though there seems to be some uncertainty about exactly when the actual construction work began, two different contemporaneous sources reveal that as of the spring of 1935 work had not yet begun, but that by the spring of 1937 work was complete and the unit involved in finishing the work within the park—the 3777th company, originally from West Fork, where they were supposed to be involved in the ongoing construction at Devil's Den State Park—were wondering where they would be shipped next) . The CCC...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) constructed a "recreational area for swimming at Bragg Pond."

The CCC conducted extensive work on Breakheart Reservation to turn it into a public park. From the Friends of Breakheart Reservation website: “undreds of men lived and worked here, paid $30 a month, out of which they kept $5 and sent the rest home to their families. It was the CCC who helped develop this land into a recreational area with bridle paths, trails, and picnic areas.” From Wikipedia: "In 1934 the executors for Johnson and Clough sold the Breakheart Hill Forest to the Metropolitan District Commission for upwards of $40,000. The MDC then turned the land over to the Civilian...

The Civilian Coservation Corps (C.C.C.) was active at the Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, Mass. 1934 Metropolitan District Commission annual report: "Under Chapter 338, Acts of 1934, the Commission were authorized to purchase about 650 acres of land in Saugus and Wakefield, adjacent to the Lynn Fells Parkway, near the junction of the Newburyport Turnpike. This area, which has been named Breakheart Reservation, will be developed into one of the most attractive recreation parks in the Metropolitan District. Application has been made for establishing a Civilian Conservation Camp by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior." 1936 report: "About 3,000 man hours...

The Breckenridge Lookout is in the Greenhorn Ranger District: "Breckenridge Lookout, elevation 7,548 feet, is the southern most lookout on the Sequoia National Forest. It is located approximately 50 miles east of Bakersfield off of the Caliente-Bodfish Road on Forest Service Road 28S62. This fire detection location was established in 1912; the original lookout being a crows nest observation platform in a tree on the top of the mountain. The current lookout a C-3 style live-in cab, was built in 1942 by the Civilian Conservation Corps and as such is considered a historically significant structure. Breckenridge...

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...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built a garage at the historic Brickett Place house in Stow. The structure still stands on the property. According to a 1982 Nomination Form of the National Register of Historic Places, "a garage, of CCC construction is located about 75 feet from the house." The house itself was used by the CCC in the 1930s.    

"This road and drainage structure was erected at Lake Catherine State Park ...for the purpose of providing a passable roadbed for the construction of the main vehicular access road into the park" (Story, 1992). The bridge was constructed of stone walls and foundation with concrete lintel and deck by the 3777th Company of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Arkansas District, stationed at Friendship, Arkansas. "This structure was constructed by the CCC as part of the overall plan to develop this site as a public park to be administered by the state of Arkansas"   (https://www.arkansaspreservation.com).

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Bridgton CCC Camp Co. 1124 in Bridgton ME. "History of the 1124th Company. Civilian Conservation Corps. On June 1st, 1935, Lt. J. L. Fearer arrived in Bridgton with a cadre of 23 men from the Rangeley Camp No. 2107, and Bridgton Camp No. 11005 was officially begun. For a time the Cadre was quartered in the "Exposition Building" of the Bridgton Agricultural Association. The members of the cadre worked diligently, and under Lt. Fearer' s direction civilian carpenters rushed the construction of the buildings. Lt. F. R. Blaisdell, Jr. was assigned to the Company on June 23,...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) conducted development work at Grand Canyon National Park, 1933-42, including extensive reconstruction work on the Bright Angel Trail, completed in 1939. The National Park Service's CCC Walking Tour says that: " began a major reconstruction of the trail. With help from the CCC, the NPS completed the work in 1939. The early trail was only two to three feet (less than one meter) wide in spots. With pick, shovel, drill, and dynamite contractors and the CCC boys rerouted and reconstructed the trail to its present four to six foot (1.2 – 2 m) width. During the same...

The CCC assisted in the development of this state forest. From Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs: "This rustic shelter is the only one of its type still remaining. Dingley Dell Dam was another important CCC project at this forest, where there are many CCC camp buildings still remaining."

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) laborers improved Brown County State Park from 1933 - 1934. The CWA laborers built shelters and worked on establishing trails during their brief stay at Brown County State Park. In 1933 two Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps were established. The two camps were comprised of World War I veterans. The CCC laborers built gatehouses, shelters, trails, an exhibit shelter, saddle barns, amphitheater, and more. The CCC camps were disbanded in 1941.

CCC laborers completed the park amphitheater in 1936. The amphitheater was built into a wooded hillside near the Abe Martin Lodge, as a place for programs and entertainment. The seats, stage, and steps were all made from native stone.

In 1934 a vast archery hunting ground was established in the eastern part of the Brown County State Park. In 1935 CCC laborers completed the Archery (Hunters') Shelter. The shelter is classified as parks rustic state park.