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75th ANNIVERSARY OF NEW DEAL'S CCC

May 24, 2008 12:15 am

DURING THE 1930s, unemployment in the United States soared as the Roaring '20s crashed into the Great Depression. Soon after taking office in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the New Deal, a nationwide effort to fight the ravages of the Depression. Part of this endeavor was a program to reduce unemployment, conserve natural resources and provide training to unskilled young men--the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The CCC became one of the most popular programs in Roosevelt's New Deal, recruiting more than 2 million men from 1933 to 1942. Its goal was to get young men off the streets and improve their health and morale while boosting America's economy. CCC men, usually 18 to 25 years old, earned $30 per month and were required to send $25 to their families.

In 1939 Frank Kuhn of Spotsylvania County was a young man of 22 living in Philadelphia when he enlisted in the CCC. His first assignment was to Camp Lost Creek in Norton, a region of deep poverty, Kuhn said.

Kuhn, 90, remembers riding into camp in the company truck along with about 40 other newcomers. Recruits were restricted to camp the first week and warned to stay out of Norton--townsfolk didn't like the CCCers.

"Of course, I was a tough guy in those days. I was not afraid of anyone," Kuhn said.

So the young man decided to take his chance in town. Fortunately, he discovered that the locals were quite welcoming,

"The town people waved to me and were very friendly," Kuhn said. However, he did get reprimanded for breaking the rule and restricted to camp for another week.

Kuhn was one of many men who worked on projects in every state. Their main goal was creating outdoor recreation areas for public use. CCC crews worked in state and national parks, building dams, campgrounds, bridges and roads. They planted trees, stocked streams with fish and fought fires.

"They built so much and made an incredible contribution to modern-day America," Prince William Forest Park chief of interpretation Laura Cohen said.

Life in the CCC camp was administered by the Army. The men lived in large barracks and ate three square meals a day. Enlistment was for six months, but most re-enlisted multiple times. They also received job and classroom training in trades such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical work and engineering, enabling them to get jobs back home.

At Camp Lost Creek, Kuhn rose to the sound of the bugle every workday at 6 a.m. After reveille, exercise and breakfast in the mess hall, he went off to work with the rest of the crew, clearing the woods for what later became Jefferson National Forest. One day the first sergeant called for a sign painter. Kuhn volunteered.

"So after spending a few days using a jack-hammer on High Knob Mountain on cold winter days, I spent the rest of my CCC career painting signs," he said.

Meanwhile, the civilian army of men worked at hundreds of park areas across the nation. Prior to the 1930s, the National Park Service had been concerned with protecting parkland in places like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. But those places were mainly accessible to the wealthy. According to NPS planners, outdoor recreation was the inheritance of every American, including the poor living in cities. So the NPS began to obtain marginally productive land within 50 miles of metropolitan cities to create Recreation Demonstration Areas.

In May 1935 young men of the CCC and skilled workers from the Work Projects Administration began to labor in what was then known as the Chopawamsic RDA. About 2,000 men worked at Chopawamsic between 1935 and 1942. Their job was to build five rustic cabin camps within the park. Using lumber from trees found within the park and a portable sawmill, they constructed cabins, mess halls and craft lodges that are still in use today.

The men built earthen and concrete dams on the north and south forks of Quantico Creek to form lakes for swimming and fishing adjacent to each cabin camp. CCC-built roads, bridges and trails still exist throughout the park.

Roosevelt's New Deal dream to preserve wilderness and provide jobs had become a reality. The men of the CCC went on to become a skilled work force in America and contribute to the war effort of the 1940s.

Like many of his peers, Kuhn left the CCC and enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to the Corps of Engineers, and after 22 years retired as a major.

"The CCC was the starting point of my life and career," he said.

--Ann McDuffie