CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS 



At the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Congress on March 3 1 , 

 1933, created the Civilian Conservation Corps to give young men a chance 

 to obtain healthful employment and accomplish constructive conservation 

 work on our vast Federal, State, and private forest lands. At its peak in 

 1935, the Corps had 520,000 enrollees working in 2,652 camps, of which 

 1,303 were forestry camps. The CCC was terminated by Congress on June 

 30, 1942. During the 9 years of its life it enrolled 2,965,959 men 17 to 23 

 years of age, and 189,165 older war veterans. 



At the beginning, CCC work projects were almost entirely directed by the 

 Forest Service. Later, as the program broadened, the Service retained 

 responsibility for the work of Federal, State, and private forestry camps and 

 for projects assigned to the Tennessee Valley Authority. 



The magnitude of the CCC's contribution to American forestry is only 

 partly indicated in the statistics of work done, which involved an estimated 

 730,000 man-years of labor, valued at $876,000,000, and included the 

 building of lookout towers, cabins, bridges, and dams; improvement of 

 campgrounds and recreational sites; construction of telephone lines, roads, 

 trails, and firebreaks; planting of trees and thinning and improvement of 

 forests; collection of tree seed and planting in nursery beds; fighting forest 

 fires, combating forest insects and disease; and many other conservation 

 projects. 



The CCC left the Nation with a vastly improved natural resources bal- 

 ance sheet. Its outstanding contribution to the youth of America was the 

 building up of morale, vocational training for vital jobs in industry, and 

 giving millions of young men an understanding of our forestry problems. 



WARTIME ACTIVITIES 



Recognizing the challenge which production for defense would mean to 

 conservation, the Forest Service mobilized its manpower and facilities as 

 soon as the defense program began in the summer of 1940. Consequently, 

 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it was able immediately to put 

 its far-flung organization, staffed by men familiar with local conditions 

 and competent to handle technical problems, at the service of the war 

 agencies. 



Figure 15. — The ranger usually travels in a light pick-up truck, but on trips to remote 

 areas he takes his horse, leaving truck and trailer at the end of the road. 



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