- The Civilian Conservation Corps was part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
- Enrollees became known as the "tree army" because of how many they planted, over 2 billion.
- Today's state and national parks were created or expanded because of the CCC, too.
In 1933, the Ohio River spilled over, flooding Louisville, Kentucky.
Franklin Roosevelt blamed soil erosion and forests lost to the timber industry, which were among the reasons conservation was one of the new president's top priorities.
Within months, the US Army and other agencies were putting together plans for Roosevelt's "tree army," as the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, became known. The goal was to have 250,000 teens and young men in camps around the country by July 1.
The CCC didn't just plant billions of trees. They fought fires, created and added access to state and national parks, and put up telephone wires.
"They built everything from some of the most well-known structures in parks in the country to things in your own backyard that you might not even be aware of," Neil Maher, a historian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, told Business Insider.
Ecology was in its infancy as a science, and much of the work was done with the aim of benefiting humans instead of preserving or protecting plants, animals, and waterways. The goal was to use those resources as efficiently as possible.
Over 80 years after the program ended in 1942, the CCC's fingerprints are all over the US' parks, from the billions of trees planted to trails hikers use every day.
Here's how the enrollees fundamentally changed the landscape of the US across the country.
The CCC was part of FDR's New Deal.
When FDR took office, the Great Depression was gripping the US. Over 12 million people were out of work, and Roosevelt wanted to put them to work. The idea was to marry conservation projects that paid the workers well.
The CCC could focus on forestry, preventing soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects that would avoid financial loss, he wrote to congress in March 1933: "This is brought home by the news we are receiving today of vast damage caused by floods on the Ohio and other rivers."
He summed up the dual goals by writing, "It will conserve our precious natural resources. It will pay dividends to the present and future generations."
Often described as Roosevelt's pet project, the CCC reflected his view of conservation.
"Unless we maintain an adequate material basis for our civilization, we cannot maintain the institutions in which we take so great and so just a pride; and to waste and destroy our natural resources means to undermine this material basis," Theodore Roosevelt said in 1907. FDR's notions of conservation were similar to his distant cousin's.
FDR grew up on his family's 1,200-acre estate in Hyde Park, New York. There, he saw firsthand how clearing land led to erosion. In 1912, he started planting what would turn out to be over half a million trees on the property over the course of his lifetime.
In the 1930s, many conservationists worried that humans were misusing natural resources.
Gifford Pinchot was the first head of the United States Forest Service, which was formed in 1905. He saw conservation as "the development and use of the earth and all its resources for the enduring good of men," he wrote in his autobiography. Pinchot's ideas influenced Roosevelt's own.
"The idea was not to preserve them or not touch them," Maher said of the US' trees, rivers, and soil. "The idea was to very much use them, but to do it in a responsible way."
That meant planting trees that could be cut down later, but their roots would also slow erosion.
The Corps started work almost right away.
FDR took office in early March. By the end of the month, Congress had passed the Emergency Conservation Work Program Act. Enrollees were already signing up in early April, and Camp Roosevelt, the CCC's first, started up soon after near Luray, Virginia.
In just a few short months, the Corps had over 1,400 camps throughout the country. The 275,000 enrollees, as they were called, more than met Roosevelt's goal to have 250,000 men working by July 1, 1933.
The camps' tricky logistics required assistance from the Army, National Parks Service, and other agencies.
The US Army was responsible for everything from food to transportation to medical care. "The Army is their provider and tailor, doctor and teacher, spiritual advisor and paymaster," one CCC promoter wrote.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor was in charge of recruitment, and the Forest Service and NPS headed the conservation work and park development.
Robert Fechner became the program's first director.
The CCC was mostly made up of men in their late teens and early 20s.
There were a few requirements for enrollment. One was the age limit, 18 to 25. Only men were hired, and they had to be citizens. Though the enrollees couldn't be married, they had to have family members on relief, receiving financial assistance.
"Quite a number of teenagers got into the CCC lying about their age," Alexander said. "Back then, it was possible for a 15-year-old to pretend to be 18."
These were temporary jobs. They could only work for two six-month stints. Later, the number was increased to three, and the age limits were raised.
Older veterans and local experienced men (LEMs) also joined the CCC in different roles and didn't have to meet the same age or marriage restrictions. The local men typically had experience in forestry work.
Young Corps workers earned $30 a month, most of which was sent to their families.
The men only kept between $5 and $7 of their paycheck. The rest went to their parents and siblings; teens and young men who did not have families weren't able to join the program.
"The CCC might very well have helped a lot of them, but there was a prejudice against transient youth as being socially inferior to those who came from families," Alexander said.
Earnings they kept for themselves might be spent at local businesses during trips to town or on candy, cigarettes, soap, ice cream, and other items from the camp's canteen.
As the economy improved, the rules changed so the workers could keep the money they earned.
In the early days, enrollees had to put up tents and get physically fit.
The Army started conditioning camps for the new CCC recruits. The work was going to be demanding, so they had to prepare for it.
The first camps used six-person tents warmed with wood stoves. Later construction included garages, mess halls, barracks, recreation centers, and other buildings.
Planting trees was just one goal of the CCC.
In addition to filling general positions that helped the camps run smoothly, like drivers and kitchen staff, CCC members might plant trees, build structures, survey wildlife, or perform other tasks depending on where they were stationed. Civilian supervisors in the forestry and parks departments oversaw this type of work.
"They weren't given military training, but there was some degree of militaristic-style discipline," Benjamin Alexander, author of "The New Deal's Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked," told BI.
Some roles were dangerous. Men drowned or died fighting fires.
When they weren't working, there were activities to fill their free time.
The men started early in the morning and worked eight-hour days, five days a week. During their off-duty hours, there were books to read, the radio to listen to, and board games to play. Watching movies was also a popular way to pass the time.
At night, musically inclined enrollees could be heard strumming banjos or guitars or playing accordions and concertinas.
Sometimes Corps members got leave time to visit home or passes to go into the nearest town.
Boxing, baseball, swimming, and other sports filled the men's time.
Some saw camp life as the perfect opportunity to educate the young men.
Night classes were another way to occupy the enrolled men. As many as 110,000 CCC members learned to read and write during the program, according to one estimate.
Other men had already started attending college and might be able to continue studying physics or literature, even if it was informally. Nearby libraries and universities sometimes provided books or instructors.
Enrollment varied across camps, and some men showed up because "there was nothing else to do," one participant later said. Many eventually lost interest. For others, though, it was a chance to get training or learn something new. The courses offered covered everything from typing to beekeeping to drama.
Enrollees raved about the food.
In the midst of the Great Depression, many of the men arrived at camp undernourished. The Army supplied as much as 5 pounds of food a day. After a few weeks, most gained weight, an average of 12 pounds.
A typical breakfast might consist of eggs, bacon, coffee, cereal, and bread. Dinner might be burgers, potatoes, and coleslaw.
"I never ate so good in my life," one enrollee later said.
Roosevelt wanted the nation's young men to be in the fresh air.
For FDR, there was a danger in having large numbers of men in their teens and 20s without jobs.
"There's always the governmental concern that too many unemployed, disaffected youth could be a recruiting ground for political extremists, both communists and fascists," Alexander said.
Keeping them busy would have "moral and spiritual value," Roosevelt said: "We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings."
The Army created segregated camps for Black CCC workers.
When Congress passed the act creating the CCC, Oscar DePriest, its only Black member, included language that "no discrimination shall be made on account of race, color, or creed" when hiring workers.
Young Black men were able to enroll, but the Army continued its segregation policies in its CCC camps. Many from northern states like Minnesota were sent to the South. An editorial in Minneapolis' "Spokesman" newspaper called these transfers "a vicious move to send our boys into states which subscribe completely to Jim Crow traditions."
In both the North and South, white communities sometimes objected to Black CCC units setting up in their vicinity. "The government actually had difficulty locating the Black camps for that reason, based on nothing other than paranoia," Alexander said.
Director Fechner then suppressed Black men's enrollment, a policy that stayed in place until 1941, according to the NPS.
A separate organization, known as the CCC-ID, employed Indigenous workers.
What became known as the Civilian Conservation Corps—Indian Division, or CCC-ID, started in June 1933. Run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, it had slightly different requirements than the original version.
Men who were older than 25 could enroll, and many lived at home instead of in camps. Projects were similar, including dam and fence construction, stringing telephone lines, building roads, and fighting fires. When the program ended, around 80,000 Indigenous people had been involved.
Women couldn't enroll in the CCC.
First lady Eleanor Roosevelt spearheaded "She-She-She" camps for about 8,500 unemployed women. These summer programs took place from 1933 to 1937 and were meant to "provide healthful employment and useful instruction amid wholesome surroundings for needy young women."
Their work was very different, according to the New England Historical Society. They put on plays, sewed, and fixed toys.
"The creation of jobs appeared to be the solution for the male population alone," historian Elaine S. Abelson wrote.
Locals sometimes worried about camps of young men invading their communities.
Some local shops would put up signs: "No Dogs or CCC Allowed," some enrollees said.
"They also sometimes got into conflicts with the local young men," Alexander said. "There were a few fist fights there."
Eventually, locals realized the camps boosted the economy. CCC members would offer open houses to smooth over relations. These often ended with positive mentions in the paper or visitors swapping recipes with the cooks.
Enrollees and locals also mingled at dances.
They would either travel into town or hold them at the camps. It gave them a chance to meet young women from the area. "Some lasting marriages grew out of such unions," Alexander said.
As with many other aspects of camp life, these events were segregated. "Then, occasionally they'd have a dance, and we weren't invited," Black CCC member Paul Wood later said in an interview.
The range and scope of the CCC's projects were enormous.
Eventually, every state and several territories had camps. They worked on farms in Nebraska, built visitor centers in North Dakota, and installed stairs in Oregon caves.
The Dust Bowl crisis hit the Great Plains in the CCC's early years.
Drought and "black blizzards" of dust underscored the danger of soil erosion. CCC camps relocated to the Great Plains to work on farms, trying to conserve soil.
They worked with farmers to remap their land to better hold soil and water. Newly planted trees would grow into windbreaks to prevent massive dust clouds in the future.
"They really transformed a lot of the agricultural land," Maher said.
Highlands Hammock became a jewel in Florida's park system.
Wealthy scion John Roebling and his wife, Margaret, spent tens of thousands of dollars transforming virgin forest into a park.
In the mid-1930s, CCC workers arrived to build an arboretum. They also constructed trails, built picnic benches and fences, and cleared roads.
The Hydaburg Totem Park preserves totem art in Alaska.
Located on Prince of Wales Island, the park, which CCC and locals built in 1939, contains 21 totem poles. The Haida people moved to the island in the 1700s. Another Indigenous group, the Tlingit, appreciated their skill in carving canoes and other objects out of red cedar.
Several local communities contributed the totem poles, which still stand today, though some have been repaired or retouched.
Enrollees planted over a million trees in Minnesota.
The CCC both bolstered existing forests and planted 13 new ones in the state. The men filled them with white and red pines, aspens, and poplars.
"Whenever you see a stand of red pine about 10-12 inches in diameter, it is almost certain to have been planted by the CCC," forest archeologist Walter Okstad told oral historian Barbara W. Sommer.
Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park got some of its iconic trails.
Before the CCC fully segregated workers into all-Black camps, some worked at the Grand Canyon.
John B. Scott, a member of Company 818, trained new recruits and worked on trails, per the NPS. This company was responsible for the Colorado River Trail, which was an engineering feat.
A stone bridge went up in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
CCC enrollees built a lot of structures, from visitor centers to picnic shelters to bridges. Between 1939 and 1940, camp members constructed a stone bridge to replace a wooden one in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater took years to build.
On June 15, 1941, the amphitheater held its first concert, featuring New York City's Metropolitan Opera star soprano Helen Jepson. Hauling dirt, quarrying stone, putting up a stage, creating an orchestra pit, and constructing the tiered seating area made it one of the CCC's biggest projects.
"I think one of the most beautiful projects the CCC did was the Red Rocks Amphitheater," Maher said.
CCC members tallied species and collected specimens.
Botanists working for the CCC made valuable records of plant species that were later removed. Others noted animal species. In Minnesota, they studied how birds migrated and how mammals moved through different areas.
Virginia and Louisiana got their first state parks.
Yellowstone was the first national park in the US, established in 1872. New York created its first state park at Niagara Falls in 1885, and other states quickly followed.
Not every state had its own parks, though, and those that did often had trouble funding and supporting them. NPS director Horace Albright wanted to change that. He encouraged local agencies to use CCC and its funding to develop more parks.
The effort to increase the number of state parks was different from the CCC's other conservation work, Maher said. "It was creating outdoor recreational spaces where people could get healthy and go into the outdoors."
For the CCC, firefighting was a top priority.
Dry conditions in many states meant forests were susceptible to fire. The enrollees built fire towers, cleared brush, and created fire breaks to keep flames from spreading. Many fought fires that broke out.
An out-of-control fire could destroy everything the CCC camps constructed, so it was the enemy. Today, their practices don't align with modern fire ecology.
"Many of these fires had to burn in order to keep the forest healthy," Maher said.
The CCC's vision was often for a less-than-natural nature.
Parks and other spaces weren't left in pristine condition. Instead, they were altered to be beautiful and safe. The CCC turned "what was once a wilderness into a beautiful scenic recreational area," according to a report on Florida's Gold Head Branch State Park.
The men dug up unsightly plants and drained wetlands. Turtles, catfish, snakes, and other animals were killed or removed.
For CCC leadership, "nature was a wild entity that needed to be tamed, beautified, sanitized, and improved upon," historian Nelson wrote.
Some criticized CCC's ideas of conservation, instead of preservation.
Ecology was a new science, but some environmentalists objected to the CCC pulling out native plants and replacing them with neat rows of a single species of trees. Some of these new plants would turn out to be invasive.
"They started to argue that conservation needed to include a concern for ecological balance as well," Maher said.
Other wilderness advocates disliked the Corps's work in national and state parks.
"They argued the corps was building too many roads and too many campgrounds and destroying the wild character of some of those parks," Maher added.
Desirable animals, like deer, were saved at the expense of wolves and bobcats.
CCC enrollees also stocked lakes and ponds with species that fishermen liked to catch.
By the 1930s, Aldo Leopold, one of the founders of The Wilderness Society, had realized that predators were not the enemy but were instead an essential part of ecological balance. His voice and others like him weren't enough to sway Roosevelt and higher-ups in the CCC.
"The ecological critique and the wilderness critique was in the minority still," Maher said.
Despite the detractors, the CCC was a popular program overall.
A 1936 poll from the American Institute of Public Opinion found that 82% of people surveyed had favorable opinions of the program.
Locals appreciated new access to parks that had been difficult to reach by car. Now there were roads, electricity, and facilities. These new amenities also helped bring in tourists.
The CCC and its workforce helped spread the idea of conservation.
The program was so widespread that many Americans had camps of young men building structures and planting trees not far from where they lived.
As the projects wrapped up, they were then able to go out and enjoy the CCC's work.
"It also made that experience unique and special because of the way the Corps blended in that development work with local materials, local surroundings," Maher said. "So a visitor center in New Mexico looks different than a visitor center in Maine, and that really matters to the people who are visiting those places."
World War II brought an end to the CCC.
Even in its early days, "there were some who suspected that the CCC was a plot to militarize the youth," Alexander said. In the 1940s, its mission shifted.
"The Civilian Conservation Corps has a new objective as it marches forward in its eighth year," the program's director James McEntee wrote in 1940. "It is national defense."
Over the following few years, CCC camps dwindled in number. By May 1942, all had closed. The CCC-ID ended the following year.
Many former members enlisted in the Army instead. "A huge number of CCC enrollees ended up serving in World War II," Alexander said.
Decades later, CCC men continued to meet for reunions. "For many of them, it was a real transformative experience," Maher said.
The CCC dramatically altered the US.
The over 2 million men who were part of the CCC managed to do an incredible amount of work in less than 10 years. They created or expanded 800 parks, planted over 2 billion trees, and strung 65,100 miles of telephone lines.
All over national and state parks, "there are signs and plaques telling hikers that they are on grounds that the CCC made possible," Alexander said.
These projects covered 118 million acres, roughly three times the size of Connecticut.
The American Climate Corps was an attempt to bring back a better version of the CCC.
The Biden administration created the ACC in 2023, with the goal of enrolling 20,000 members in its first year.
"The idea was to avoid the problems of the original CCC and to build on the successes," Maher said.
That meant being more open and inclusive to young enrollees. Its goals were focused on the climate crisis, including fire prevention and energy grid improvements. Local communities would have had more say on which projects were prioritized.
Donald Trump canceled the program when he became president, signing an executive order on his first day in office that ended all "activities, programs, and operations associated with the American Climate Corps." However, Grist's Kate Yoder reported in January that the Climate Corps largely leaned on existing non-profits and agencies for its workers, meaning that many of the jobs will remain, for now.
Sources for this story include "Nature's New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement" "The New Deal's Forest Army: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Worked," "Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota," "How the New Deal Built Florida Tourism: The Civilian Conservation Corps and State Parks," the National Archives, the National Park Service, and PBS.
