Cuyahoga Valley National Park Development – Peninsula OH

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Between 1933 and 1939, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided labor for the construction of the Virginia Kendall Park Reserve, now Cuyahoga Valley National Park (est. 2000), in Peninsula, Ohio during the Great Depression. 530 acres of land willed and transferred to the Akron Municipal Parks Board and under the leadership of Harold S. Wagner and F.A. Sieberling petitioned the CCC in August 1933 for a camp. It was granted and in December of that year Unit #576 arrived with 208 recruits first under the command of of Lt. JR Tobin and soon replaced by Captain AW Belden.

The CCC camp reconstructed the area and by the time it was disbanded in 1938 it had completed 3 shelters, 8 latrines, a dam which created Kendall Lake, a bathhouse, 17 footbridges, trails throughout, 40,000 gallon well, 600 foot toboggan slide, 208 tables and benches, graded and developed 5 acres of campground, moved over 15,000 plants and trees, and planted 122 acres of new trees.

Stowe Mountain Resort – Stowe VT

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“Among most impressive projects was the C.C.C.’s construction of the first ski trails on the mountain in Mt. Mansfield State Forest. Charles Lord, a civil engineer overseeing a twenty-five-man work crew from the Moscow camp, carved out several trails, among them: the Ski Master, the Overland, the Perry Merrill, Lord, the S-53, and the Nose Dive. At the base of Nose Drive, the C.C.C. crew constructed a large parking area to accommodate several hundred cars.”

Lift serviced skiing at present day Stowe started when Sepp Ruschp and the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club opened a rope tow on the Toll House slope on February 2, 1937.

East Barre Dam – East Barre VT

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“The East Barre Dam was one of four flood damage reduction projects constructed in Vermont by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Construction was overseen by the Corps’ North Atlantic Division. The construction costs of East Barre Dam were not calculated separately because of accounting procedures, but instead lumped together with the construction costs of Waterbury Reservoir, Wrightsville Reservoir, and the Winooski River Local Protection Project. The construction costs of these four projects totaled $13.7 million. Following completion, East Barre Dam was turned over to the State of Vermont for operation and maintenance.

The project provides flood protection primarily to Barre and Montpelier. In conjunction with Waterbury Reservoir and Wrightsville Reservoir, the project reduces flood damage to other communities downstream on the Winooski River, including Waterbury.
Construction of the dam began in July 1933 and was completed in November 1935.

The project consists of an earthfill dam with stone slope protection 1,460 feet long and 65 feet high; a 313-foot-long concrete rectangular conduit four feet wide and seven feet high; and a spillway with a 174-foot-long concrete ogee weir. The weir’s crest elevation is 20 feet lower than the top of the dam.”  There is no permanent reservoir behind East Barre Dam, unlike the others. (Army Corps)

East Barre Dam was modified in the late 1950s.

A key aspect of these dams is that they were built by a CCC company made up entirely of African American World War I veterans.

Buescher State Park – Smithville TX

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Buescher State Park is connected to Bastrop State Park via a scenic 11-mile drive. This CCC project opened to the public in 1940. Mr. Emil and Mrs. Elizabeth Buescher donated the original land to the state between 1933 and 1936. Buescher was spared from the September 2011 fire that swept through Bastrop County. The park has a beautiful lake with fishing, camping, and hiking trails.

A plaque in front of the Recreation Hall states: CCC Companies 1805 and 1811 worked on Buescher between 1933 and 1939. Recruits enrolled for a six month period and received base pay of $30 month. Between $22 and$25 of that pay was sent home to the recruit’s home. The boys received room, board, uniforms, and access to medical and dental care. On the average, each boy would gain 11 1/4 pounds during his first three months in the CCC. A quote from a man who worked at Bastrop in 1933 stated that he was proud of the work he did, and said that everybody should look at the size of the rocks they worked with. He said that he came as a boy and left as a man.

CCC improvements in the park included: “Entrance Portals, Park Road 1, Road Curbs, Vehicle and Foot Bridges, Concession Building, Shelter, “Aztec” Style Settee, Chair, Armchair, and Sofa, Water Fountains, Stone Fence, Hiking Trail, Concrete Tables, Earthen Dam and Spillway, Tool House, and Pump House/Water Tower.  A Keeper’s House and a Contact Station were designed but not built; instead, the CCC remodeled the Tool House and the Pump House into a residence compound in 1937.”   (https://texascccparks.org)

Vermont Parks: A Legacy Written in Stone

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Vermont Public Radio, on uncovering the role of the CCC’s 40,000 New Deal employees in that state: “It’s hard to comprehend the immensity of the Civilian Conservation Corp’s work in Vermont State Parks. At Little River State Park, for example, just below the huge earth-fill dam that creates the Waterbury reservoir was located the largest CCC camp in the East. Earlier this year, park volunteer Ann Imhoff and I walked for about a mile through the woods, seeing old stone chimneys, old foundations and wells. The camp just went on and on. It had churches, a theatre, a hospital, – and was home to more than 3,000 young men who built the huge Waterbury dam. There were more than 40,000 CCC men in Vermont in the mid-1930s, and they made an immense impact on this state.”

Rachel Brahinsky is the Living New Deal's managing director and postdoctoral fellow.