By Amie Knowles
You can see it if you look close enough. Take a walk through Stuart’s Fairy Stone State Park or drive around Shenandoah National Park. You’ll possibly find CCC carved on a tree or another small tribute. This is in honor of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which helped build bridges, plant trees, and otherwise shape Virginia’s landscape in multiple ways.
In 1933, the throes of the Great Depression gripped America. That year, the unemployment rate reached a national high of 24.9%. With no work in sight and a fledgling government assistance program, President Franklin Roosevelt took charge. He created a New Deal plan, designed to get the country back on its feet.
Part of the plan centered around a specific group of Americans—unmarried men, ages 17 to 25 (and by some accounts, 28)—in need of a job. Thus arose the Civilian Conservation Corps, a group comprised of hardworking young fellows who left a drastic impact on America.
Pulled from poverty, the boys left their homes in exchange for a cash promise. Signing on for at least six months at a time, workers earned $30 a month. Even though the young men completed physically demanding projects, they barely saw any of their income. The program required that they send most of the money—between $22 and $25—back home. Their labor took care of their families.
The trade-off wasn’t so bad. The CCC met all of the corpsmen’s needs. They had fresh food, a roof over their heads, and corps-issued clothing and shoes.
The workers established more than 700 state parks over a nine-year span. There, they built dams, constructed campsites, cleared paths, chiseled stone stairs, maintained access roads, constructed bridges, engineered soil erosion techniques, and more.
