Forest Improvements and CCC Camps – Hoosier National Forest IN

Description

“On the Hoosier, the CCC crews fought fire, planted trees, developed habitat for fish and wildlife, constructed roads, bridges, campgrounds, and lookout towers. During the early days of the Hoosier National Forest, the CCC served as the primary work force for a skeletal crew of foresters. A CCC camp, located in Kurtz, not only built the lookout tower at Hickory Ridge and Dutch Ridge, but also the one at Trinity Springs. They reconstructed the Tower Road, the Maumee Road, and the old Dutch Ridge Road (now State Road 446). The rock to build the roads was quarried from what is now Blackwell Pond. The CCC also built several new homes for local residents who lived in deteriorating houses.”

(https://www.fs.usda.gov)

“The CCC Company at Tell City, Indiana on the Hoosier National Forest was also involved in the 1937 flood relief work. Some 30 Corpsmen with trucks evacuated the entire town of Leavenworth in three days of ice and sleeting weather conditions. CCC men from both Indiana and Illinois sandbagged levees, built refugee camps carried mail in CCC trucks, provided short-wave radio communication, and saved thousands of board feet of cut logs by removing them from the flooding banks.”

(www.foresthistory.org)