Newspapers: The Civilian Conservation Corps; LaSalle, Louisiana Submitted by Jack Willis Date: 11 Oct 2004 Source: From the Jena Times - Olla Tullos Signal, Woodlands And Waterways Echoes Date: 26 Nov 2003 ************************************************ Submitted to the LAGenWeb Archives ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** *********************************************** The Civilian Conservation Corps Up until infirmity, disease and death took their toll, a few remaining veterans of the C.C.C. Camp Swan located at Nickel, LA would gather on a Saturday in October for a day of reminisce, fellowship and recalled memories of how they weathered the crisis of The Great Depression. The camp site is deserted now...it's part of a hunting club and only a steel sign proclaiming Camp # 1495 and some concrete tables built in later years by a former member Ray McCrory and his wife as a memorial remains to mark the C.C.C. occupancy. This is dedicated to the memory of those men, and thousands of others that made up the Civilian Conservation Corps. Today at Camp Swan only a mournful wind sighs through the pines. No other sounds are audible... With the onset of the Great Depression in Black October of 1929, chaotic circumstances were unfolding across the United States, and around the world. Besides the fact that cotton was only bringing 5 cents a pound, and hogs were selling for the same rock bottom price also, excessive tilling of the Great Plains for decades, with no erosion control practices in place, was about to exact a terrible price because the verdant seas of buffalo grasses, which had held soil in place for centuries were no more, having been turned under by the John Deere middle buster plow. Dust storms began to rage, with their far reaching effects even blackened the skies of Washington, D.C. due to the fact that an estimated 850,000 tons of top soil was being lifted up per day off the Southern Plains with its whereabouts unknown to this day. One series of storms was so terrible in their onslaught that they sucked up as much soil as was dug out during the entire excavation efforts during construction of the Panama Canal. In his book Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck, in reference to this terrible period of time in American history, penned a line that tragically summed up the somber events enveloping and overtaking the land when he wrote the words, "The dawn came, but no day". In accepting the nomination for the Presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in part: "Let us use common and business sense...We know that...means of relief both for the unemployed and for agriculture, will come from a wide plan for the converting of many million acres of marginal and unused land into timber land through reforestation... In doing so, employment can be given to a million men...". On March 21, 1933, just seventeen days after his inauguration, the President presented to Congress his message proposing legislation to help relieve distress, to build men, to accomplish constructive results in our vast Federal, State and private forest properties by formation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Later he would write, "I have been greatly interested and encouraged by the fine reports I have received regarding activities in the CCC Camps in many parts of the country. This kind of work must go on. I believe that the Nation feels that the work of these young men is so thoroughly justified and, in addition, the benefits to the men themselves are so clear, that the actual costs involved will be met without much opposition or much complaint." Very sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt In just two months the formation and implementation of the C.C.C. guidelines began to be felt, even in Louisiana. In one account, concerning the formation of a camp in LaSalle Parish, but it was located near the LaSalle-Catahoula Parish line, incorporating most of their recruits from both parishes as related at to what happened on the spring morning of May 3, 1933. Fifty-three boys trooped into an office in the old City Hall Building in Alexandria, Louisiana to take their U.S. Army physical examination, which was a requirement for enrollment in the Civilian Conservation Corps, and after the physicals were completed, they were loaded on old World War I army trucks and roaded over to Camp Beauregard near Pineville, LA. On the following morning of May 4, Capt. S.A. Hall, who had been assigned to the company as commander, called this little band into one of the mess halls at Camp Beauregard to appoint leaders, assistant leaders and other members to jobs for which he thought they were best suited. On June 15, Capt. F.E. Collins took command of this company, with Capt. Hall being second in command, and about the same time that Capt. Collins arrived, the Casualty Company consisting of eighty-nine men, was also assigned to the company with 17 boys from Fort Barancas, Florida joining the company. These late additions were young men off the streets of New Orleans originally and were born fighters, with most all of them immediately making the company boxing team, and accounting themselves very well. On June 28, the company of men were loaded up again in the World War I Army trucks and headed for a potential camp site assigned them known as Nickels Springs, located about 14 miles northeast of Jena, Louisiana, between the little communities of Summerville and Rosefield, on a pine tree studded ridge running practically east and west. In the layout of the camp, beautification of the already natural surroundings was stressed, and by gathering sand stone indigenous to the area, natural masonry components were incorporated into the construction of the rustic fireplace in the recreation hall, and in the massive gate marking the entrance to the camp. Barracks, rest rooms and a laundry were constructed first, and then an educational program was established offering a variety of subjects to the recruits, and in conjunction with the literacy program it was decided to have a contest in which the men of the camp could submit drawings of what they thought the proposed entrance gate should look like. The contest was won by Albert Willis, being awarded a prize of $5.00 for his efforts, with two years of college at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute with a major in Civil Engineering prior to the onset of the Depression, aiding and abetting his designing efforts A crew headed up by Steve Ford as foreman constructed the gate in the spring of 1936 with it taking about three weeks to gather and haul the natural stone and finishes construction. A wooden beam hewed out of a post oak about 18 feet long and was 8"x12" in height and width spanned the roadway between the pillars. Hand carved whitewashed wooden swans adorned the tops of the tallest towers and each stanchion was in reality a planter where every year a long leaf pine about two feet tall would be transplanted for adornment. The woods were combed for vines and limbs naturally formed so as to spell out the name CAMP SWAN, which was superimposed on the face of the beam. Unfortunately the gate is no longer in existence having been torn down in the mid-fifties by a timber company executive in order to salvage the recovered stone with which to build him self a fireplace and chimney. Pity! An illustration of the gate was recreated from a minute, ragged 2"x 3" photograph belonging to Thad G. Mayo, and is the only picture of the gate known to exist. Mayo later became the brother-in-law of Albert Willis. The pen and ink illustration by Jack Willis was reconstituted from that tiny photograph. The men that came and went through Camp Swan accomplished many of the goals they set out to do; they built about 300 bridges, 300 concrete culverts, strung 100 miles of telephone lines, plowed 125 miles of fire lanes and constructed 200 miles of truck trails in just two years, and besides that, the men participated in over 6000 man days of fighting forest fires. The Civilian Conservation Corps was in operation for about eight years. When it was absolved, on February 1, 1938 the Soil Conservation Service was formed and Albert Willis transitioned into this new agency. He served the agency well for almost 30 years until his untimely death on July 11, 1967 from lung cancer, but he never forgot the opportunity he was presented for a life-long career through the C.C.C. In summation, the Civilian Conservation Corps accomplished to the maximum, the purpose for which it was created with over two million young lads experiencing its benefits, after being thrown onto city streets and marooned in the rural areas at the very beginning of their careers, by a tremendous, overwhelming economic depression, these young men endured, and as a reward, they were offered a period of financial security by one of the few Federally birthed relief programs that ever really worked. During the eight year period the C.C.C. was in full operation, the young men cared for their dependents with their earnings, while they themselves learned how to discipline their lives, build themselves up physically, and then prepared as useful citizens, were ready to make their way into the world. World War Two was looming on the horizon. W & W E (12-31-03) JMW