Kiwanis Cabin – Cibola National Forest – Cedar Crest NM

Description

"The cabin of local limestone was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) around 1930. The cabin was planned by a local Kiwanis group."

"The SBAC has determined that the CCC ruins are potentially a nationally significant historic intrinsic quality; however, the only visible site access and interpretation is at the Kiwanis Cabin. Therefore, the SBAC considers this intrinsic quality to be only regionally significant at this time. The Kiwanis Cabin is located seven tenths of a mile from NM 536 Milepost 13.6 (Sandia Crest). There is adequate parking, a visitors center, and an improved path to the site. The U.S. Forest Service provides interpretation via rangers at the visitor center and interpretive signs at the site.In the span of eight years, from 1933 to 1941, 54,585 Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees in New Mexico built hundreds of roads and rails, 795 bridges, 472 lookout towers large dams and reservoirs, installed millions of rods of fences and planted millions of trees for reforestation and to prevent gully erosion.When these New Mexico men joined the corps, along with 3.5 million other Americans, the country was in desperate straits. Close to 25 percent of the population was unemployed. Hunger and despair had become a way of life.A group of local corps alumni want to see a memorial CCC museum of national stature built on the site where CCC Camp 814 F-8-N Sandia Park once stood on a piece of land just off NM 536, the Sandia Crest Road. They want people to know what they accomplished in youthful days during the Great Depression. And they want todays youth to know that youth are a major asset to this country, just as the CCC men were when they were boys. The CCC was the greatest-ever conservation effort in American history."

-US Forest Service