Mainstreet Radio’s Catherine Winter reports on a Civilian Conservation Corps reunion at Iron World (later known as Minnesota Discovery Center) in Chisholm, Minnesota. Winter talks with a few individuals that reflect on their time with CCC. Many of the members of the corps had been workers from the Iron Range.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's as one of the earliest New Deal programs during the depression. It was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men.
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WOMAN: Now this was certainly familiar to those of you who were in the CCC camps of Franklin Roosevelt's theme song.
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CATHERINE WINTER: Hundreds of retired people, balanced plates full of potato salad and hot dogs on their laps and listened to the Second Wind Harmonica Band play outside the building that houses the new exhibit. Inside, gray-haired men looked at displays of tree planting tools and firefighting equipment and looked for themselves in photographs of young men in Civilian Conservation Corps camps.
The CCC was created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933, when nearly a quarter of America's workforce was unemployed and unemployment on Minnesota's Iron Range was 70%. Men between 18 and 25 years old could earn money doing conservation projects, and their families received a stipend. 75-year-old Harvey Richards says his family lived near Eveleth and was having a hard time making ends meet. So he joined the CCC in 1936.
HARVEY RICHARDS: There were eight children in the family, and I was the oldest boy. So I went into the CC camps too, so that there would be something coming in at home. $25 went home, and I had $5 for incidentals, tobacco and toothbrush and toothpaste and so forth and soap.
CATHERINE WINTER: Was that enough to help the family out?
HARVEY RICHARDS: Well, $25 went so far back, then.
CATHERINE WINTER: Members of the CCC lived in camps, 40 men to a barracks. They built dams and parks and roads and fought forest fires. Richard says when he joined the CCC, much of Northern Minnesota had been forested, but the CCC members planted millions of trees. He says it was hard work, but it was fun too.
HARVEY RICHARDS: You always had good times. Yeah. You always had a bunch of nuts in the camp that kept things going. And it was just good. It was a good life.
CATHERINE WINTER: As part of the new exhibit, researchers have collected oral histories from men who were in the CCC, and many say they had a wonderful time in the camps. 79-year-old Frank Skullas says the time he spent in the CCC was one of the highlights of his life.
FRANK SKULLAS: You ever noticed that any time you see a picture of kids in the camps, they're always smiling? They came in, they were poor kids and happy to have a place to stay, and they had good food. And so they were happy to be in this camp.
Most of them stayed in the camps. And then they wanted to stay in longer. At first, they were only supposed to stay six months or a year, but then they stayed in longer. Some stayed in two or three years, as long as they could re-enroll.
CATHERINE WINTER: Skullas says the work he did in the CCC led him to a career in the Forest Service. Many former CCCers say they used the training they got in the camps for the rest of their lives. Thousands of men learned to read and write in the camps.
The program was phased out in the early 1940s as the economy began to improve. But Skullas says the CCC left a legacy.
FRANK SKULLAS: We got a lot, a lot of bridges and dams and the roads, a lot of fire trails like at Brimson. We got a lot of plantations up at the Western part of the states, an unbelievable amount of plantations that we have trees growing now.
CATHERINE WINTER: Skullas remembers planting tiny seedlings that he says are now 60-foot tall trees. Organizers of the new exhibit say it's a monument to the work CCC members did and a reminder to the current generation to work to preserve the environment.
Former CCCer Harvey Richards, says perhaps something like the CCC is needed today.
HARVEY RICHARDS: Well, especially the 18 to 24-year-olds that don't fit in any place They couldn't complete school, and they don't get along with people, and they just haven't found their niche in life. And a camp like that would be excellent for them.
CATHERINE WINTER: The new Civilian Conservation Corps exhibit is a permanent display at Iron World in Chisholm. I'm Catherine Winter, Main Street Radio.