Civilian Conservation Corps, Vernon Parish Louisiana



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Roosevelt helps create CCC to aid Vernon Parish in reforestation effort
By Bonnie Godwin/Staff Writer
Leesville Daily Leader
October 5, 2004

After the lumber boom in Vernon Parish ended in the late 1920s, land
around the parish was left bare and needed reforestation. The Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC) was created by President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt to help the decimated land become the lush forests Vernon Parish
has today.

President Roosevelt addressed the problem of decimated land in his 
presidential campaign by promising to start a program of reforestation.
After he was elected he called the 73rd Congress into Emergency Session
on March 9, 1933 to authorize the construction of the CCC camp program.
He proposed to recuit unemployed men to become part of the peacetime
army and have them battle destruction and erosion of America's natural
resources.

It took only 37 days for Roosevelt to mobilize the program.

CCC enrollees worked around the country to replant the country's trees.
Between 1933 and 1942, the CCC is credited with planting around three
billion trees.

The CCC opened two camps in Vernon Parish in the 1930s after the lumber
industry began closing its doors. The camps supplied thousands of jobs
to young unemployed men from mostly the East coast and helped reforest
the timber in the parish.

Work done at the camps included tree planting, fire suppression, fire
detection, road and bridge construction, landline survey and fence
construction.

Camp Vernon was home to more than 200 enrollees, five Army officers and
eight forest service employees. A group of 175 men from Jackson, FL.
were part of the Vernon Camp. Transportation was a major hurdle though
for the program to overcome and that is were the Army's leadership came 
into place.

The Army ran the camps and used regular and reserve officers along with
Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy personnel to command the camps and
companies.

Interested enrollees had to meet certain criteria before applying. Men 
had to be single and between the ages of 17 and 25. They were paid $30
per month, $25 of which was sent home to families. The camps were not 
a place to establish skills for living, while replanting the nation's
needed resources.

The Army worked alongside the Department of Labor to help with selection
and enrollment of men into state and local camps. The administration of
the CCC ran unprecedented. Never before had the country seen management
run so smoothly in a government program.

The CCC camps also helped the economy of the country. Small towns near 
the camps where finally beginning to see growth again after a period of
decline from the lumber industry dying because of the influx of new 
employees. Many men eventually married women from the neighboring town 
nd lived in the area after the CCC programs ended.

The year 1935 was one of the greatest for the CCC program. By the end
of 1935 every state had camps, including Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico
and the Virgin Islands. There were more than 2,650 camps. All together
there were more than 600,000 people working in or for the camps.

The camps also supported educating the young men so that after enrolling
in the camp the men were more suited for work in the outside world.
Throughout the program more than 40,000 illiterate men were taught to 
read and write. They learned valuable tarde skills they could take into 
the workforce after they left the camps. 

Although the program was ultimately very successful, Congress never made
it a permanent agency, possibly because of foreknowledge of ensuing wars.
By June 1, 1942, the CCC was recommended to be abolished. Things were
becoming different throughout the United States. Pearl Harbor had shaken
the country and the number of enrollees was declined rapidly. Many men
went on to serve their country in war after being enrolled in CCC camp
programs.