- City:
- Orinda, CA
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Infrastructure and Utilities, Paths and Trails, Water Supply, Dams
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Description
The New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps camp was located just below San Pablo Reservoir. CCC laborers living at the camp did work to support water infrastructure improvements for the East San Francisco Bay area. In addition to dam-building, workers at the San Pablo Dam camp planted trees and built fire roads for the new San Pablo check dam and reservoir area.
The San Pablo Dam camp was also one of the CCC’s African-American camps. In the agency’s early years, federal work crews were intentionally integrated communities, with stipulations that each unit enroll African-Americans at a rate proportional to their representation in the national population (10%). However, in 1935, the CCC was formally segregated, separating war veterans, African-American civilians, and white civilians into nominally “separate but equal” work units. Following segregation, recruitment and hiring of African-Americans by the agency fell off until 1941, when an overall reduction of workers spurred a CCC recruitment drive among African-Americans.
Source notes
John S. Longwell. "The G.M.'s Column." Splashes Magazine April 1937, p. 5.; https://newdeal.feri.org/aaccc/; https://thecivilianconservationcorps.weebly.com/integration--segregation.html.Site originally submitted by East Bay Municipal Utility District on December 5, 2014.
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