-
Chapter 12. The CCC Legacy in Nevada
- University of Nevada Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
More than seventy years have passed since the founding of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Most Nevadans do not remember the contributions of these young men or the how the Great Depression affected the rural state. We rarely question who carved out the backcountry roads, lined the canals, or built the campgrounds with signature rock walls, fire pits, and park trails that we use and enjoy today. Many New Deal projects have disappeared or are showing their age, although the basic foundations of Nevada’s early recreational facilities, wildlife preserves, and irrigation systems have withstood the test of time. Fortunately, historians and historic preservationists have a renewed interest in the Depression era, and Nevadans are eager to reacquaint themselves with the events of this period. Thus, the CCC legacy will not be forgotten . The struggle to survive the adversity of the 1930s constitutes another major chapter in America’s heritage. Oral historians seek the personal stories of CCC alumni, many of whom are esteemed veterans of World War II. Looking back, it is difficult to assess the true value of the CCC contribution to Nevada without placing it in the context of the New Deal. We will never know how Nevadans would have fared without aid from the federal government. It is clear that New Dealers looked favorably on Nevada. Federal monies eased the symptoms of the Depression and made life a little easier . And although the environment benefited from the New Deal, the improvements to land and municipal structures were by-products, rather than objectives, of the massive economic recovery effort. FDR s overriding goal was to provide hope for discouraged Americans; the main goal of his CCC program was to save a generation of unmarried young men. For the president , creating jobs for working-age males superceded all else. These men were our future. But FDR considered the well-being of all Americans. While The CCC Legacy in Nevada 12 ’ The CCC Legacy in Nevada 147 young men worked on conservation projects, others were put to work on capital developments.1 Although New Deal programs like social security, farm price supports, securities and bank regulations, and minimum-wage legislation have survived, those that provided employment ended with the economic recovery enticed by World War II. Nevada received the largest per capita allotment of New Deal monies in the nation because of its huge federal landholdings and influential public officials. According to the national CCC director’s estimate, the CCC “advanced range rehabilitation by ten to twenty years.”2 But this attention to the land would not last. The demands of a global war undermined the progress made in the 1930s. Range-management controls on public domain and forestlands stalled, and no new reclamation projects were planned. As summed up by one historian, FDR s conservation momentum soon became a nonissue on the American agenda.3 The abrupt cessation of federal support affected land managers and citizens alike. For nine years, the CCC served as the main search-and-rescue team, firefighters, and civil defense squad. Not surprisingly, the CCC program was sorely missed. Derrel Fulwider, a forty-two-year veteran with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, described the challenges land managers faced: The year 1942 was very bad for fires. The CCCs had previously been used on fire suppression work. So there was no district fire organization when I came into the [Winnemucca] District in February of that year. . . . Two fires in July and August in the Buffalo Hills–Painter Flat area burned some 345,000 acres. . . . Truckloads of transients were rounded up in Reno. . . . [A]nyone interested in making a buck, including jailbirds, were brought to Winnemucca. . . . It was also noted . . . how important previous fire suppression work by the CCCs had been, as well as other work . . . like building roads. . . . Most of the firefighters that year were winos.4 The situation at Hawthorne was equally grim. Without the CCC to build new roads and improve the Naval Ammunition Depot, the search for reliable workers for wartime expansion turned out to be a challenge. Accountant Austin Childs had little recourse but to hire a “rougher class from the Eastern cities of Detroit, Cleveland . . . bums, petty criminals and undesirables.”5 Despite thousands of improvements made to the Nevada landscape, the enrollees reaped the greatest benefits. For nine years, the federal government had taken responsibility for this generation of young men. Though it was a tough transition for some...