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85 Payson and Company 807 Bonds of friendship formed through common experiences and adventures became almost routine in the CCC. Less likely was the longterm bond between a CCC unit and the local community. There were, of course, economic ties between nearly all the camps and the nearby towns. They depended on each other in order to get through the tough times. Transactions for food items, building materials, and mechanical services are just three examples of how the towns and camps could help each other. But that relationship was short-lived. The camps completed work, moved on, and left the town to wonder what happened. Of course, most CCC camps and work projects were in remote locations, and the local folks rarely saw the completed projects and didn’t interact much with the men. A few of the boys might come into town on the weekends to blow off a little steam, but that was the extent of their contact. Even then, the commotion usually lasted only a few months. The camp would relocate and the community would return to its sleepy ways. Only a very few towns in the West were able to experience the social and economic impact of the program for nearly the full life of the CCC. The ranching and lumber community of Payson, Arizona, was one of those towns. In 1933 it was an all-day trip on a long, bumpy dirt road from anywhere to get to Payson. Originally called Union Park because of its open grazing meadows, the mile-high town was in the middle of ideal ranching country. Its location on the edge of the huge pine forest covering the Mogollon Rim gave Payson the potential to become the hub of lumbering activity in central Arizona as well. It was just waiting to happen. A few improvement projects to open up the country were all that was needed. Fortunately for Payson, for eight years during the darkest days Chapter 5 86 j the ccc in arizona’s rim country of the Great Depression, one company of CCC enrollees was at work nearby helping to push the town’s development forward. Payson and the ranchers of northern Gila County near the rim had a special relationship with the boys of Company 807. From the beginning at the Indian Gardens camp (f-23-a) in 1933 to the end of the CCC program in 1942, the men of Company 807 worked on projects in the Tonto National Forest and around Payson—a rarity in a CCC system that kept crews moving to job sites and camps all over the Southwest. Camps and companies came and went all over the Rim Country and White Mountains , but things were different around Payson. The CCC camp at Indian Gardens (f-23-a) was about fifteen miles east of Payson, and when it was officially abandoned in 1937, a new camp established on the East Verde River north of town finished out the run of the CCC. Even though the young men served their entire CCC enrollment around Payson, Company 807 was not a bunch of hometown boys. The unit had been organized in Texas, with a small group of Arizonans thrown in to fill out the roster. Of the almost two hundred young men who reported for duty at Indian Gardens in those early days, only thirtyeight were from the Grand Canyon State. Men came and went in later years, but the Texans maintained the advantage. In small ways, the camp and the town helped each other in good times and bad. When the Ford Motor Sales baseball team from Globe couldn’t make it to Payson for the game against the camp team, the Payson team hurriedly got together to take its place. The Indian Gardens team beat the Payson boys, but the camp players were nonetheless grateful that they had not made the long ride into town for nothing. The camp newspaper later commended the Payson team for being “great sports all through the game, even though they were unprepared for a game” that day.1 A few weeks later, a man (not a CCC enrollee) was killed when he fell out of a truck a few miles south of town. Officials at Indian Gardens graciously arranged to send the camp ambulance to Payson, and then on to Phoenix so the deceased would have the most dignified transportation available to his final resting place. The crew working at Indian Gardens in the summer of 1934...

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