The Civilian Conservation Corps In Arizona'S Rim Country: Working In The Woods

Chapter 8 A Pennsylvania Boy in Arizona: Charles Pflugh

106 A Pennsylvania Boy in Arizona: Charles Pflugh Charlie Pflugh would have to catch up with the other Pennsylvania boys. A large group of them had already gone west about two years before . They were Company 3346, and like Charlie, they saw the trip as a grand adventure. Eager to get away from hometown life and experience something new, the men of Company 3346 crowded around the bulletin board at the Pennsylvania Reception Center pointing to a map of Arizona and wondering what their destination town, Williams, would be like. They were among five thousand Pennsylvania men who were being transferred from the Army 3rd Corps area to the 8th Corps in the Southwest . Their group was the last company to leave the CCC Reception Center at Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. As such, the boys got a big sendoff at the train station from various dignitaries, including John McEntee, the future national director of the Civilian Conservation Corps. On 2 August 1938 the train carrying the men of Company 3346 pulled into the station at Williams. Dignitaries were also waiting for them there. The mayor, the chief of police, and the Williams High School Band welcomed the young men. Speeches were made and greetings exchanged; then the men boarded trucks and headed nine miles south to their summer home at J. D. Dam (f-28-a). They didn’t stay long. Soon it was on to their winter camp at Noon Creek (f-41-a) near Safford, in eastern Arizona. In the summer of 1939 the company made the move to Chevalon Canyon (f-78-a) in the plateau and canyon country of the Sitgreaves National Forest. The camp was on a promontory overlooking the canyon and a lovely stream below, and the enrollees enjoyed a panoramic view Chapter 8 a pennsylvania boy in arizona j 107 of wide-open blue sky and green landscape in all directions. The forest of juniper and ponderosa pine was quiet and remote. There was a good dirt road north to Winslow, but travel south into the woods was an adventure . Heading in that direction, the elevation gradually increased. Dense standsof ponderosaand mixed conifersclosed inaround theroad. There were no towns. Wildlife was everywhere. Finally, thirty-five miles south of camp, there was the escarpment of the Mogollon Rim. That natural cliff barrier stopped travel. From the edge one could look down nearly two thousand feet to the seemingly endless green carpet of trees and the mountains beyond. Travel east or west from Chevalon led into a series of deep-cut roadless canyons, as work crews from the company would soon discover. This country was unlike any the Pennsylvania men had ever seen—even at other Arizona job sites. The camp had one redeeming feature: it was brand new and designed for year-round occupation. The buildings were all of frame construction; there were no tents. Officially the buildings were classed as portable, and indeed they were, but building crews had learned a lot about solid construction since the early days of the CCC. They knew how to build a wooden structure that would hold heat. The camp buildings were as modern as anything the CCC had previously used. After almost two years of continuous occupation, the camp was still a model of how things should be done. “The buildings were in very good condition,” and inspectors rated the place as “superior type, spotlessly clean, well equipped and furnished.”1 The camp was new and the scenery beautiful, but there was one disturbing element about the new environment. None of their previous camp assignments had prepared the Pennsylvania boys for the isolation of Chevalon Canyon. The other camps where the company had served were reasonably close to towns. Not here. Thirty-five miles of dirt road separatedChevalonfromWinslow.Theisolationcontributedtothemalady called homesickness. Homesickness was nothing new. It struck all the CCC camps every day. Even the official records mention it. It was the hidden reason behind many enrollee discharges at camps all across the forest. The situation was no different at Chevalon. Special requests for discharges at Chevalon prompted an investigation by the CCC Director’s Office. The investigator’s conclusion that the men “were extremely homesick and unable to adjust themselves to the camp” could not have been a surprise . Three months earlier the same inspector had talked to sixty-three 108 j the ccc in arizona’s rim country enrollees at Chevalon who had become...