Forest of Time: A Century of Science at Wind River Experimental Forest

Chapter Five: A New Deal for Forest Science

68 { Chapter Five A New Deal for Forest Science { It is clear that economic foresight and immediate employment march hand in hand in the call for reforestation. —Franklin Roosevelt1 When Franklin Roosevelt accepted the Democratic nomination for president in 1932, the nation had been suffering bank failures and bread lines for three years. Lumber prices in the northwest were at historic lows. However, as historian Harold Steen pointed out, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Forest Service researchers had more to do, and more money and manpower to do it, than ever before.2 Part of Roosevelt’s New Deal was the Emergency Conservation Work Act, which called for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a million-man army dedicated to conservation. The Department of Labor selected enrollees; the Department of War operated the camps; and the Agriculture and Interior departments managed the work projects. Over the course of nine years, the CCC put three million young men to work in American parks and forests. Many worked for the Forest Service, planting trees, reducing erosion, and protecting forests from fire.3 Company 944, organized at Fort Lewis, Washington, was one of the earliest CCC groups deployed in Washington. In May 1933 an advance guard of the company arrived at Wind River to begin constructing a camp on Trout Creek, across from the Wind River Experimental Forest buildings.4 It was the site of the former Wind River Lumber Company, which had closed in 1925; the land had been A New Deal for Forest Science { 69 purchased by the Forest Service in 1929.5 Under the CCC, it was known as Camp Hemlock and became home to as many as 170 young men, ages 18 to 25, and a staff of technical personnel, cooks, and the company officers (fig. 5.1). The CCC not only brought manpower to the woods, but its building projects also created a new demand for lumber. Living initially in army pyramid tents, the CCC “boys” built Camp Hemlock according to the Army’sstandardspecifications:rectangularframebuildingsconstructed from dimensional lumber. During their first season, they built four barracks, a mess hall, an infirmary, an education hall, officers’ quarters and garage, and several shops and utility sheds, and they installed wood-burning stoves to heat the buildings. Over the next few years, they built a new office for the Wind River Experimental Forest and a regional training center that would be a meeting place for Forest Service managers and scientists for decades to come (fig. 5.2). As the Wind River community grew, the existing power plant could no longer handle the additional demand. In 1935 the CCC began construction of a new powerhouse that harnessed power from a new dam that arched across Trout Creek. The Vancouver newspaper called this “the largest CCC construction project undertaken in the United Fig. 5.1. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) at Camp Hemlock awakens at reveille, 1933. (The larger building in the background no longer stands.) (Courtesy of USDA Forest Service.) 70 { Chapter Five States.”6 The powerhouse and its 183-foot dam provided electricity to over 30 Forest Service buildings at Wind River.7 The project also created Hemlock Lake, a reservoir where the CCC developed a picnic area and boat launch, which quickly became a popular spot for residents of the Wind River valley. Despite these ambitious building projects, the foremost goal of the CCC was the conservation of natural resources. At Wind River, the CCC worked in the nursery fields and constructed trails on Trout Creek Hill (fig. 5.3). The members built paths through the arboretum and placed water pipes there for fire protection. When a huge old Douglas fir blew down near Mineral, Washington, the CCC built a display at the arboretum entrance featuring a cross section of the fallen giant. The display allowed visitors to count the rings across the 15-foot diameter cross section, which showed that the tree had been almost 1,000 years old when it fell (fig. 5.4). Firefighting got a boost from CCC manpower and the funds allocated by the Clarke-McNary Act. Throughout the area of the Yacolt Burn, fires had continued to flare up on old burned sites. Now with money and manpower, forest managers could implement firefighting strategies in the region. CCC crews felled snags, cleared brush, dug waterholes, and built roads and bridges that opened up more of the inaccessible parts of the rugged Cascade...