Forestry and Agriculture Sites

Originally named Newport News Homesteads, "Aberdeen Gardens was a New Deal planned community initiated by Hampton Institue (now Hampton University), designed specifically for the resettlement of African-American workers in Newport News and Hampton. In 1934, the Hampton Institute secured a $245,000 federal grant to create the housing development. It was the only Resettlement Administration community for blacks in Virginia and only the second neighborhood in the nation for blacks financed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Subsistence Homestead Project. The Aberdeen neighborhood was designed by Hillyard R. Robertson, a black architect from Howard University. It became a model resettlement community in the United States. Charles Duke, a black architect, was name architect-in-charge...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers built a shelter at Admiralty Cove as part of the Admiralty Island Canoe Route, created from 1933 to 1937. This route included shelters, portages, dams, cabins, boathouses, and skiffs and was part of a program to enhance recreational opportunities in Alaska. The CCC structure serves as a boat shelter today and is located on the site of the Admiralty Cove Cabin.    

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation authorized construction of the Agency Valley Dam, on the North Fork of the Malheur River, in 1933. The Hinman Brothers, of Denver, began work on the 110 foot high, earthen structure in March 1934 and the project was completed in December 1935. The reservoir capacity of the dam project is 59,200 acre-feet. Authorization of the dam was based on the needs of the Vale Project, an irrigation and water control plan serving the Malheur River area. It is the second of three dams serving the project and the only one constructed during the Depression. The Warm...

The New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA) employed 40 men "in making improvements" at what was then known as the Fort Hays Branch of the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station (now Agricultural Research Center).

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) conducted major development work at New York's Allegany State Park between 1933 and 1942.

"The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided jobs to people willing to work towards reforestation of cut-over timber land and was the progenitor organization of the Allegheny National Forest. A number of CCC camps and CCC associated property types are located within the  Forest including planted red pine plantations, including the first such effort at reforestation by the CCC in the United States." (https://www.fs.usda.gov) "The second CCC camp in the country opened on the Allegheny National Forest. These newest enrollees came to the Forest from Pittsburgh, the hard coal region around Scranton, south Philadelphia, and the deep South. They were immediately put to work...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed Vermont's Allis State Park during the 1930s. "They built up the access roads, constructed a massive timber picnic shelter, picnic grounds and a campground."

Located in the Snow Mountain Ranger District of the Malheur National Forest (transferred from the Ochoco National Forest in 2003), the Allison Ranger Station can be described as historically  significant given its age and continuous use in the administration of the Forest Service’s responsibility for this relatively remote area in the Ochoco Mountains of eastern Oregon. The timber and summer forage have been important to the local economy’s lumber and stock-raising industries. The Allison Ranger Station served as the administrative headquarters for the district from 1911 until the 1950s when the headquarters was moved to Hines, Oregon. At that time, the...

Anacostia Park is one of Washington DC's two largest parks and recreation areas, along with Rock Creek Park.  It covers over 1200 acres along the Anacostia River from South Capitol Street SE to the Maryland boundary in NE.  The New Deal improved the park in major ways, after the Capital Parks system was put under the control of the National Park Service (NPS) by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. New Deal public works agencies developed such key features of the park as Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, Langston Golf Course and Anacostia Pool (see linked pages). Besides those major elements, improvements included,...

Built in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Antlers Guard Station was originally used to house project and fire crews. Later on, guard stations lost their utility, because the Forest Service had quicker ways to get to forest areas without these stations. Starting in the 1990s, the Antlers Guard Station was rented out to the public, and in 1991 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge is a 114,657-acre, federally protected area at San Antonio Bay on the coast of Texas. The refuge was established by Executive Order 7784 on December 31, 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Aransas Migratory Waterfowl Refuge. The name was changed in 1939. It was created under the Bureau of Biological Survey and is administered today by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (created in 1940 from previous agencies). The refuge was set aside to protect the breeding grounds of migratory birds and the vanishing wildlife of coastal Texas. In particular, Aransas was the focal point of...

The Argos Izaak Walton League clubhouse and attendant (former) fish hatchery were constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 to 1937. The fish hatchery in Argos, Indiana had "a capacity of 375,000 fingerlings annually."The facility is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. "This building of glacial stone and the surrounding 17 acres of fishing ponds and structures are a tribute to natural aesthetics, an idea important to the League who made this building their clubhouse. The Argos Izaak Walton League was established in 1929 in response to concern for the conservation of natural resources, fish and wildlife...

"The Ashwood community was created by the New Deal resettlement program to convert defunct plantation or farm land into a self-sustaining community of independent farms with educational, agricultural, and commercial support facilities."

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed 7 new fish rearing ponds at Avoca State Fish Hatchery.

The Babbin Farm is an example of the work of the Resettlement Administration in getting families off the relief rolls and back to farming. An article in the July 1 1937 Bangor Daily News reports on two families, the Babbins and Holmquists who were helped. The article mentions that a million farm families were on the relief rolls as the depression came on. “It was during this crisis that the government came to the conclusion that in most cases a more ideal and beneficial situation exists when the farmer is helped to help himself himself than by parceling out of direct...

"The Bailey Colony Farm is a farmstead associated with the 1930s Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Project in the Matanuska Valley. Although the original forty-acre tract has been subdivided, the house and barn that were built in 1935 remain and, virtually unaltered, they are examples of the project's architectural style. The barn is presently located approximately 150 feet from its original site. It was moved in the late 1940s when the Glenn Highway was widened. The move did not change the general spatial relationship between the house and barn, and the building's current setting is very similar to the original. Ferber and...

The Forest Service fire lookout tower on Washington Bald Mountain, built in 1918, was an enclosed wood type and was 55-feet high. It was replaced in 1934 with a 70-foot steel tower constructed by the Indian Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) out of the Passamaquoddy camp. The tower was dismantled in 2007.

The historic Barfoot fire lookout tower in Coronado National Forest was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1938. NRHP Nomination Form: "Barfoot lookout is located on the Douglas Ranger District and was built in 1935, possibly by a CCC crew. The lookout house is an L-4 type wooden house measuring 14 ft by 14 ft. This complex also includes a wood frame shed, privy, concrete cistern and an attractive, rustic style native stone retaining wall. The lookout complex represents one of the best examples of its type in the Southwestern Region. Study of historic photographs indicates no major modifications have...

"The CCC camp at Bass River State Forest, Camp S-55, lasted from 1933 to 1942, throughout the entire life of CCC. ... There were usually 200 men at the camp, which was a full complement. The CCC members performed wide range of conservation work. The young men of the CCC built park roads, trails, bridle paths, bridges for vehicles, ponds for fish and waterfowl, lookout towers, nature observatory shelters, picnic areas, cabins, fireplaces, campgrounds, recreational lakes, and landscaping. The most noteworthy feat was the creation of the 67-acre Lake Absegami, by damming two streams flowing through the forest."

In 1935, a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was located at Battle Mountain State Park to improve that state recreational property. The CCC workers built a water system with drinking fountains and a large granite fireplace as well as placing picnic tables throughout the park. The park is located on State Highway 395, nine miles north of the town of Ukiah.  

Stabilization of Clatsop County's coastal dunes was the primary work project of CCC enrollees from Camp Warrenton from 1933 to about 1940. Soon after the completion of the south jetty on the Columbia River in 1913, beach erosion became a significant issue on the county's coastline as far south as Gearhart, Oregon. Soil scientists encouraged experimentation with planting Holland Dune Grass to stabilize dunes and to prevent road closures and property damage due to blowing sand. By 1936, soil scientists and local residents already noted improvements. In 1940, the success of the experiment was established. A 1940 article in The Oregonian reported: "There...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built "roads, trails,bridle paths, vehicle bridges, ponds for fish and waterfowl, lookouttowers, a nature observatory, shelters, picnic areas, fireplaces,campgrounds, recreational lakes, and worked on landscaping and firefighting. Today you can also find a museum devoted to the CCC in New Hampshire here."

The historic Bear Mountain fire lookout tower was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). NRHP nomination form: "This Aermotor MC-E4 steel tower, located off the Alpine Ranger District, was constructed in 1933, probably by the CCC. It is 45 ft 9 in high and has a 7 ft by 7 ft steel cab. The storage shed (an old cabin) was built in 1928. The present cabin and privy were built in 1940. There was a wooden platform tower at this location in the early 1920s. The lookout complex is situated within a primitive area and is also the location of...

The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge was created by Congress in 1928 to protect waterfowl on the flyway through the Great Salt Lake Basin.  It covers 80,000 acres of marshes, sloughs and uplands at the delta of the Bear River, flowing out of the northern Wasatch Mountains.  Early efforts to improve habitat and water quality for migratory birds in the 1920s had come to naught, so local hunters and conservationists sought the aid of the federal government.   The newly-renamed Bureau of Biological Survey took over management of all national wildlife refuges in 1933 under President Franklin Roosevelt, the number of...

The State of Texas erected a historical marker in 2009 to commemorate this New Deal resettlement community. The text reads: "Named for its location between Beaumont and Port Arthur, Beauxart Gardens was developed during the Great Depression by the U.S. Government as a federal subsistence homestead colony under the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. The act encouraged urban and rural workers to supplement their incomes through agriculture. Residents worked part-time at area refineries and kept gardens and livestock. One of five such colonies in Texas, Beauxart Gardens was located on fertile rice land and provided a total of 50 families...

The current Deer Lake Campground in Township34 ME is the location for the Beddington CCC Camp. Excerpt from "Official Annual, 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps": "On May 1935, a cadre of men from Bar Harbor moved into the woods, thirteen miles off the Airline, a road running across country from Bangor to Calais, and pitched tents on the shore of Deer Lake, situated in Township No. 34. The construction began under the command of Lt. Tuttle, assisted by Lt. Wyman. From this cadre grew the 1127th Co., and near the latter part of July the Forestry department moved in under the supervision of...

This fieldstone and wood building (tower with stone base and wood shelter at the top) was erected by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Fire towers are endangered due to their isolated locations and because they are no longer necessary for fire prevention/control.

"Kilkenny Camp 2117, 155th Company CCC, Berlin, New Hampshire, was established May 29, 1933, as one of the camps of the White Mountain National Forest Service." Once the Dolly Copp Camp Ground was established, the camp focussed on the Berlin hatchery. "A power house, canals, control dykes, and breeding ponds built at the York Pond Fish Hatchery making it one of the largest hatcheries of its kind in the country." "Berlin National Fish Hatchery in Coos County, New Hampshire, will be operated and funded by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department under a memorandum of agreement signed October 19,...

The Berry House is a farm house built in 1935 as part of the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation's Matanuska Colony project. Representative of the frame colony farm house typology, the Berry house retains most of its original features and it has been minimally altered since it was built. The structure is located on the original colony tract. A registration form of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) describes the characteristics of the structure: “The house is a one-and-one half story wood frame structure with a rectangular floor plan. It measures 30' 6" x 35' 6" with a 6' x 14'...

Beulah Reservoir, also known as Agency Valley Reservoir, was created with the completion of the Agency Valley Damn in 1935. Throughout 1939, the Bureau of Reclamation supervised enrollees at a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) spike camp. They built a stone parapet wall on the upstream crest of the new damn. The spike camp was CCC Camp Vale, or Company BR-45 which worked on the Vale Project. The basalt stone wall runs on both sides of the road that crosses the top of the damn. The stone signature plaque left to commemorate their work is located on the eastern end of the...

From 1933 to 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) planted 304 acres of “white pine, Norway pine, Scotch pine, and jack pine.”

"The Big Shaheen Cabin is the only log cabin built by Civilian Conservation Corps workers as part of the Admiralty Island Canoe Route. Situated on the east shore of Hasselborg Lake, the cabin was intended to serve as a lodge. Originally, it was the only enclosed building along the canoe route. Built for recreation, it is still used for that purpose and has not been substantially altered since its construction in 1935." "The Big Shaheen Cabin is the only cabin that was part of the Admiralty Island Civilian Conservation Corps Canoe Route. It was constructed with horizontal logs about ten inches...

The lookout buildings were constructed between 1936 and 1938 by members of Company 2515 of the CCC. The cabin was used for lookout workers until the early 1980s and can now be rented by guests.

"The Black Belt Substation, now expanded to become the Black Belt Research and Extension Center, was established in 1929 as one of the original "substations" of the Main Agricultural Experiment Station at Auburn University. Most of the research projects conducted at the Center emphasize beef cattle and forage production--a vital industry in the 12-county Blackbelt region containing 349,000 head of cattle. Research on cotton, soybeans, and small grains also provide equally valuable research proven information for Blackbelt farmers and cattlemen." The Works Progress Administration was involved in "Improve Black Belt Experiment Station near Marion Junction, Dallas County, including clearing, grubbing, and...

“WHIPPANY – The Veterans CCC Camp activities are now centered in Whippany at Hait’s bridge on Route 10. The men are busily engaged in dredging the junction and courses of the Black Brook and Whippany River, cleaning out the silt, logs and stumps and other rubbish that has been washed down the course for the past centuries. The stream beds have never been cleaned out before as far as is known. The men have been working at this for the past several months, partly for the elimination of mosquito breeding places and partly for sanitary reasons. The water had become...

Black Butte is a cluster of peaks in the Shasta National Forest. In the 1930s, the CCC built trails up to the summit as well as the Black Butte lookout tower. The tower was destroyed by a storm in 1962. Another was built in 1963 but removed to another location in 1973.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook mosquito control work in Tyler, Texas. Work included lining a creek bed with rubble masonry walls, and paved cement pan to keep down mosquitoes.

The Black Mountain Lookout Tower was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and was completed in 1940. The tower is 14′x14′ with a catwalk on a stone foundation. It functioned as the lookout for the north end of Bighorn National Forest. No longer in use, the tower remains a popular hiking destination. In the summer of 2014 the U.S. Forest Service partnered with non-profit HistoriCorps to sponsor extensive rehabilitation work on the tower. Volunteers completed a variety of tasks with the intention of the tower becoming a rental cabin or interpretive site.

From the Plumas National Forest website: "Black Mountain Lookout is situated on the eastern edge of the Beckwourth Ranger District, 10 miles from Highway 395, near Milford, California. The lookout was constructed in 1934 and is a great example of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) architecture. The C-3-type lookout is situated on a single story 10 foot tower and is extremely well-preserved. The lookout offers striking views of Honey Lake to the north, and Last Chance Creek to the south. The rental is available from Memorial weekend through October. The fee for an overnight stay is $60."

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...