Paths and Trails Sites

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed Pokagon State Park into a fully-fledged recreational park in the 1930s, planting thousands of trees, building trails, establishing a group camp, and constructing park buildings, including a gatehouse, bath house (with beach), saddle barn, two-story shelter house, and more. CCC Company 556 occupied Camp SP-7 at Pokagon from 1934 until 1942. To enhance the outdoors experience, projects exhibited designs that were rustic and harmonious with their surroundings, using native materials and adhering to guidelines established through the National Park Service. Pokagon has been home to the longest running annual CCC reunion in the country and continues the...

According to the park's website: "1940 Jack Zedaker leads boys from the National Youth Administration in building two shelter houses (Zedaker Pavilion and the Shelter House at “Indian Spring” near Gutknecht Entrance), four footbridges, planting of trees, construction of trail markers, improvements to trails, and the creation of a parking area. 18,000 maple trees planted, 50,000 willows along Yellow Creek for erosion control."

The CCC conducted extensive work at Ponca State Park. From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln "Virtual Nebraska" database: "Over the years the Missouri River moved at will. Eventually the town was no longer "a port." In 1934 the American Legion raised money to purchase 220 acres along the river for a park. Over 2,000 people attended the dedication. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) built roads, buildings, two shelter houses, and transplanted 5,400 shrubs and trees. In the years that followed cabins were built and electric lights installed. The ferry boat, docked at the Bigley ravine, made regular trips across the river...

Developed by the CCC, this "trail connected Port Graham and Nanwalek residents to seasonal fishing camps and a cannery, providing an alternative to coastal water travel when the ocean was too rough.” It now serves primarily as an ATV trail.

With financing from the Works Progress Administration, the Brazos River Conservation and Reclamation District (now the Brazos River Authority) completed Morris Sheppard Dam in 1941 creating Possum Kingdom Reservoir. The district transferred 6,969 acres of land to the State of Texas for parks around the lake. The original plans by the state included east and west units of Possum Kingdom State Park on opposite shorelines. Designers abandoned the east unit and focused on the west side. Civilian Conservation Company (CCC) Corps 2888 arrived in May 1941 and began work. The CCC enrollees provided utilities and basic services. They cleared the park...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) made the first improvements to the newly-acquired Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.  Company 1903 worked out of a CCC camp established at the north end of the 'prairie' at the present park entrance in 1933.   The first order of business was to develop Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park itself, after which teams from Company 1903 worked at other state parks along the north coast of California.  The CCC camp closed in 1937. Among the many other improvements the CCC 'boys' (young men) made to Prairie Creek park was a 70-mile long network of trails for visitors...

From 1933 to 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed Prescott Park on Roxy Ann Peak on the east side of Medford, Oregon for public recreation.  The CCC enrollees constructed the access road, 18 miles of trails, several picnic areas and overlooks, and drainage ditches. Much of the CCC work is above the parking area and accessible only on foot. Prescott Park covers 1,740 acres on Roxy Ann Peak, a prominent hill east of the city of Medford (a remnant of volcanism in the old West Cascades). The lower slopes are characterized by oak savanna woodland and the higher elevations by...

Prince William Forest Park was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), with help from skilled workers of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), from 1935 to 1942.  It was then known as Chopawamsic Recreation Demonstration Area (the name was changed in 1948).  RDAs were meant for getting inner city children out into the country to enjoy the benefits of nature and outdoor recreation. The New Deal programs built permanent structures, including the park headquarters and five cabin camps, extensive roads and trails, and five recreational lakes.  Almost all these improvements are still in use today.  The National Park Service, which operates...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked to develop Promised Land State Park during the 1930s. Among other work the CCC constructed cabins and blazed trails. "Nestled within evergreens and adjacent to Lower Lake, the Bear Wallow Cabin Colony has 12 rustic rental cabins that were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s."

In August 1941, the WPA completed the construction of extensive improvements to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The work was focused along the West border of Prospect Park between Garfield Place and 15th st., where the WPA built "marginal playgrounds, two sitting areas with sand pits, walks and bicycle path" to supplement the new bandshell, which had been added in 1939. Specifically, this work included: “a semi-circular sitting area, 100 feet in diameter,” with “a large central sand pit and a continuous row of benches for guardians of the children“ opposite 13th St., as well as a similar sitting area and sand...

On August 23, 1941, Parks announced the completion of a new WPA playground at Lincoln Rd. and Ocean Avenue (now known as the Lincoln Road Playground): "The playground at Ocean Avenue and Lincoln Road, approximately one-half acre in size, is semi-circular in shape, paved with asphalt so as to provide year round usage and equipped with a shower basin-, a sand pit, kindergarten swings, slides, see-saws and a pipe frame exercise unit. A large open area provides space for general play, skating, and organized games. Around the perimeter continuous benches have been provided for mothers and guardians. A new brick comfort station...

The federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) and, later, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted substantial construction and improvement work at Queen City Park in Tuscaloosa, Alabama during the 1930s. CWA labor constructed roads and tennis courts, and drained fields for baseball diamonds. WPA labor constructed nature walks featuring stone walkways and bridges. The Queen City Park Pool was a WPA project as well.

"Early in the 1930s there was a CCC camp in area and they built ... many trails in that wilderness area near Quemado Lake."

The CCC did extensive work in the park, including building a hand-hewn log and stone footbridge, a comfort station, a picnic pavilion, trails, bridges, and several log structures.

Randall's Island Park cover more than 400 acres of the 500+ acre island.  It contains dozens of tennis courts, baseball diamonds, soccer fields, playgrounds and other recreational facilities, as well as paths, greenways and a marsh.  Frank da Cruz summarizes the extensive New Deal renovation and expansion of Randall's Island Park: "Randall's Island itself, which (with neighboring Ward's Island, now joined to it) lies in the East River between East Harlem, the South Bronx, and Astoria, Queens... Prior to the New Deal it housed institutions such as an orphanage, a poor house, a reform school, a potters field, a refuge for sick and/or...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and National Y0uth Administration (NYA) aided  in the development of Rankin Park, a 42 acre park in the hills to the west of Martinez.  The city purchased the land for $12,000 in 1938 and New Deal relief workers went right to work, helping city crews and Boy Scouts develop the park for public access and use. The work teams cleared brush, planted trees, built roads, laid out trails, and created picnic areas with stone picnic stoves, as well as adding a ball field, a playground and sanitary facilities. (Contra Costa Times, May 28, 1939) More information is needed...

Rocky Mountain National Park was established in 1915 to preserve a spectacular section of the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains.  Several new additions to the park have been made over the years, until it reached its present size of 415 square miles. The park saw considerable recreational development in the 1920s under the National Park Service (NPS), but it benefitted enormously in the 1930s from the New Deal.  Most notable of the New Deal agencies was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), but the \ park also gained funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA), road work by the Bureau of...

The East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD) was formed in 1934 and acquired land for parks from the East Bay Municipal Water District in 1936.  The first parks were Tilden, Sibley, Temescal and Redwood in the East Bay Hills behind Berkeley and Oakland CA.  The New Deal provided extensive aid towards improving the new parks (except for Sibley) for public recreation, working with the Parks District's first general manager, Elbert Vail. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) set up five camps in the East Bay hills and operated in the parks for the entire New Deal decade, 1933-42.   The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was...

The Annual Report from 1932-33 of the Los Angeles Board of Park Commissioners describes the role of federal funding in developing Reseda Park, which still serves the community today: "Reseda Park is one of the city parks located in San Fernando Valley at Reseda and Etiwanda Avenues, Kittridge Street, and Victory Boulevard. Being forty acres in area it provides a delightful recreational spot for the residents of San Fernando Valley. A great deal of improvement was accomplished during 1932-1933 with the help of the R.F.C. and County Welfare workmen. Fifteen hundred lineal feet of walks were built, involving the grading of 600...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a rustic staircase from Market St. and S. 23rd St. up into Reservoir Park. The surrounding slope was strengthened with stone and planted to protect against erosion. The staircase appears to be no longer extant.

The WPA did extensive work in this Dallas park as part of "an extensive parks beautification program intended to make the city a showplace. For Reverchon, this meant the introduction of a series of stoneworks, including the floral amphitheater known as the Iris Bowl, a fountain entry and a picturesque bridge over Turtle Creek. The masterstroke of the project was Hillside Terrace, a trail network of meandering stone stairwells, lookouts and seating spaces that cling to the park’s bluff, providing shade, privacy and views. The paths and their furniture are all constructed of rough-cut Milsap stone that runs a spectrum from...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped construct Salem-Winston’s Reynolds Park and Recreation Center between 1939 and 1940. “A $300,000 proposed municipal park and recreation center at Winston-Salem, N.C., has received final approval in Washington,” a journalist for Park & Recreation magazine reported. “The development, to be known as Reynolds Park, will be located two miles east of the courthouse square…Within the area will be an 18-hole golf course, a large swimming pool, tennis courts, an athletic field and wooded area for walking and picnicking.” The fruits of this WPA-funded project can still be enjoyed today.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) conducted extensive development work in Grand Canyon National Park from 1933 to 1942. Among its trail development work, the CCC constructed the Ribbon Falls Trail. The National Park Service's CCC Walking Tour says: "More challenging projects included a number of inner canyon trails. The Ribbon Falls Trail, a half-mile (0.8 km) spur off the North Kaibab Trail, still leads hikers to a beautiful waterfall." The trail is approximately 2.7 miles south of the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim, as the crow flies.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) made several improvements to Richardson Grove State Park during the period 1933-40.  Richardson Grove was one of the original Old Growth redwood groves purchased by the Save the Redwoods League in the early 20th century and passed over to the California state parks. It was officially established around a single grove in 1922 and has been expanded to 1,800 acres since. Little had been done in the way of improvements before the New Deal, in part because California did not establish a full state parks system until 1928.  Working from camps farther north in Humboldt Redwoods...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from the Mt. Elden Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp near Flagstaff worked at Walnut Canyon National Monument from 1938 to 1942. Among other work, the CCC crews almost surely built the Rim Trail, which departs from the Visitors' Center and heads east for roughly a quarter-mile along the north rim of Walnut Canyon, ending at a stone terrace observation point. All the sources omit this trail to focus on the Island Trail in discussing the work of the CCC at Walnut Canyon, but the stone work and railings at the Rim Trail and observation terrace are similar...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) conducted extensive development work at Grand Canyon Village,  1933-37. The National Park Service CCC Walking Tour notes that: "While the CCC crews were refurbishing the rock wall , they also constructed new log benches." Documentation is lacking as to whether the benches extant today were the original benches made by the CCC.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) conducted extensive development work at Grand Canyon Village, 1933 to 1937, including resurfacing the Rim Trail from roughly Hermit Road to Yavapai Point. The resurfacing extended far beyond the part of the trail in front of the hotels where the CCC built the well-known rock wall. The National Park Service's CCC Walking Tour states that, "During the summer of 1935, the CCC resurfaced the path along the rim ... and improved the trail to the east as far as Yavapai Observation Station."

"The year 1933 brought many significant changes into the National Park system. Up until that time President Herbert Hoover saw to it that the national parks received their allotment requests for park operations and development. Budgets and staff for the national parks had increased substantially during his administration (Tweed, 75). But the Depression changed all of this when, in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt and a new administration came on board. A variety of innovative and comprehensive relief programs were introduced to alleviate the nation’s growing unemployment crisis. These programs, instituted under the New Deal, provided work opportunities for the unemployed....

Today's U.S. Forest Service Rincon Fire Station (Azusa, CA) was one of twenty Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps in the Angeles National Forest. From 1933 to 1935, CCC Company #905 shared the location with Camp Rincon, a declining private camp run by Burt Luckey. The CCC men stationed here built trails, firebreaks, and roads.

In 1933-36, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) constructed the Grand Canyon's River Trail at the bottom of the canyon between the Bright Angel and Kaibab trails. The National Park Service's CCC Walking Tour, discussing various CCC trail development projects, notes: "The Colorado River Trail (also 1933-36), connecting the Bright Angel Trail and the South Kaibab Trail along the south side of the Colorado River, is only two miles (3 km) long, but has the reputation of being the most difficult and hazardous trail construction ever attempted in the canyon. Crew members blasted the trail bed into the schist and granite cliffs...

Construction of the San Antonio River Walk was undertaken during the Great Depression by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and is one of the agency's most iconic accomplishments. During the late 1800’s citizens of San Antonio became concerned about preserving and protecting the winding little river that ran through the center of their town. In 1929 Robert H.H. Hugman had presented his master plan using an Old World theme to enhance and maintain the natural setting of the river while allowing commercial development.  In 1938 after funding was obtained through the WPA Hugman was hired as the architect of the San...

In 1934-35, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped develop Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary out of the marshes along the south shore of the Potomac River. Roaches Run  is located at the north end of National Airport, which was developed a few years later.  The CCC enrollees built a tidal gate between the lagoon and the river, cleared out brush and landscaped the area.  They built a parking lot for visitors and entry/exit roads from the George Washington Parkway, along with a trail around the lagoon.  A gamekeeper's cottage and feed storage unit were also added. The CCC crews presumably worked under...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was present in the newly-minted Death Valley National Monument  from 1933 to 1942.   At the time, Death Valley had almost no developed roads or other infrastructure.  So the CCC ‘boys’ laid out the basic road system, grading over 500 miles (800 km) of roads.  Most of the modern roads in the park are, therefore, paved and improved versions of CCC roads.    The CCC also built roads and trails to points of scenic interest, such as Ubehebe crater, Artists' Palette and Golden Canyon.  The longest and highest trail was to Telescope Peak in the Panamint Mountains...

A major upgrade of facilities at the Petrified Forest National Monument (now National Park) was undertaken by the New Deal in the 1930s.  The work was carried out from 1933 to 1940 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), under the direction of the National Park Service (NPS).  Some, if not all, was paid for by a grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA). Among other works, the CCC enrollees improved and paved the parks' dirt roads, including the main Petrified Forest Road and the Blue Mesa Scenic Road, adding bridges over the washes.  The also built the park's trail system, including...

This picnic area on U.S. 281 in Hamilton County is an early roadside park constructed by the Texas Highway Department (now Texas Department of Transportation). This roadside park was completed in 1936 to accommodate motorists attending the State's Centennial Events. This park is home to the 1936 Pink County Centennial Marker. Listed on TX DOT flyer as a surviving depression era roadside park. These early picnic area were constructed by young men of the National Youth Administration (NYA). Construction of park facilities was quite labor-intensive. NYA workers usually quarried and dressed their own stone and felled their own trees for lumber. Stone...

The Civilian Conservation Corps built recreation facilities at the Robber's Cave State Park. "Located four miles north of Wilburton on State Highway 2, Robbers Cave State Park, originally Latimer State Park (name changed in 1936), encompasses more than eight thousand acres and includes three lakes and many tourist amenities... In 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 1825 was organized and located at the state game preserve. In 1935, under the supervision of the National Parks Service, the State Parks Division took control of the area. Between 1935 and 1941 CCC Company 1825 built a bathhouse, cabins, trails, group camps, shelters, and roads....

Formerly known as Enfield Glen State Park, New York's Robert H. Treman State Park was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) between 1933 and 1941. From 1933-1941, "...the men of Camp SP-6, Company 1265 were, according to the late local historian Neil Poppensiek, “trucked to work sites in Enfield Glen (later Robert H. Treman), Buttermilk Falls, and Taughannock Falls State Parks. There they excavated flagstone and did masonry work, blasted, excavated fill, graded, planted trees, shrubs and grass, built roads, bridges, and water systems, erected park buildings, and – after the disastrous floods of July 1935 and August 1937 –...

The CCC developed this state park.    

The planning and construction of the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway largely predates the New Deal, but it was only completed in 1933-36 with help from the National Park Service (NPS), Civil Works Administration (CWA), Public Works Administration (PWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).   The Parkway runs 2.5 miles from the Lincoln Memorial on the Potomac River along Rock Creek to the Connecticut Avenue bridge, just south of the National Zoo.   At that point, the road becomes Beach Drive and the Parkway join Rock Creek Park.  The two are separate units of the National Capital...

At the same time as the New Deal completed the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, it extended the system of trails south from Rock Creek Park (a separate park unit) into the parkway.  All such paths were converted to general purpose walking and biking trails in the 1970s. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built more than two miles of bridle paths in both Rock Creek Park and the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway.  This work was done under supervision of the National Park Service, which had gained oversight of all DC parks in 1933. The Public Works Administration (PWA) paid for the replacement...