Conservation Education

2008 marks the 100^th anniversary of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests. In this the Centennial year, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests is celebrating its past achievements and sharing its story of conservation with the people it serves. Join us each month as we explore the stories of the people, places, and events that have shaped this rich legacy.

The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests

The 1930s were memorable times in American history. During this era better known as "The Great Depression," the nation suffered many hardships—several banks went broke, unemployment rates were at a record high, severe drought destroyed numerous farms and other agricultural businesses, and many, many people lost their homes, livelihoods, and confidence in the American economy. As a response to these dire conditions, many dramatic changes were made by the federal government to improve the economy and consequently the quality of life for the American people.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of many organizations introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt under the "New Deal" program to bring this type of dramatic change to nation. On March 21, 1933, President Roosevelt addressed Congress specifically on the matter of unemployment and stated,

"I have proposed a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with the normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects… The type of work is of definite, practical value, not only through the prevention of great financial loss, but also as a means of creating future national wealth."

Convinced of the urgent need for conservation and employment of the unemployed, Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) Act on March 31, 1933 which essentially established the CCC. Then on April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6106, Relief of Unemployment through the Performance of Useful Public Works, to appropriate funding and organize the management of the newly formed program. According to this Order, the Department of Labor was responsible for enrolling individuals in the program; the Department of War was responsible for enrollees’ physical conditioning, transportation, and supplies; and the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior were responsible for planning and conducting work projects on the public lands (namely the National Forests and Parks).

The newly formed program was met with a great response. By the summer of 1933, 25,000 men from 16 cities were enrolled in the CCC. These enrollees were typically between the ages of 18-25 and were unemployed, unmarried, and able to handle strenuous physical labor. In exchange for their work, enrollees received food, clothing, shelter and a monthly wage of $30—which as a part of their contract, they had to send $25 to a dependent such as a close family member. In this way, the CCC program helped to 1) provide much needed income directly to thousands of unemployed young men and their families, 2) provide income indirectly to the businesses in which these enrollees and their families spent that income, and 3) provide these young men with valuable job skills (and sometimes basic educational skills like reading and writing) that would help them get jobs after their enlistment with the CCC.

On the Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests, four CCC camps were established during that first year: Hart Canyon (May 29^th), Los Burros (June 5^th), Blue (June 11^th), and a camp just a few mile south of Alpine with no formal name on record, but which local sources commonly referred to as "Camp Lawton" (May 27th). These camps typically housed 200 men and comprised of a few dozen semi-permanent, canvas structures. Selecting a site to establish a CCC camp was based on availability of supplies, work, and perhaps most important for the Southwest, water.

As the CCC became more successful and expanded, other camps were added including: Buffalo Crossing (1934), Three Forks (1934), Eagle Creek (1935), Juan Miller (1935), Greer (1938), and Chevelon Canyon* (1939). In some situations, these additional camps were actually "side" or "fly" camps that worked in conjunction with another camp to accomplish a greater span of work. For example, Buffalo Crossing was established as a side camp of Blue so that the CCC could work year-round—in the summer, they worked in the higher elevations of Buffalo Crossing, and in the winter, the lower elevations of Blue. On the Sitgreaves side, side camps were established in Vernon and Show Low as an extension of the Los Burros Camp—the purpose of these camps was not to extend the work year-round, rather, to extend the work to a larger area and also to concentrate specific types of work to individual camps. In this way, the effectiveness of the CCC was not limited by season or distance to travel.

The nature of the CCC's work itself was varied. During the first few years of their establishment, most efforts were devoted to improving and/or constructing roads and building telephone lines. Up until this time, many of the roads on the Forests were extremely rough and hardly usable for motor vehicles, and telephone lines were limited to very few areas. The CCC changed this situation through extensive construction activities. To improve the roads, they widened them, installed bridges, and re-surfaced the ground; two significant roads given a dramatic facelift during this time were FR 300, also known as the "Rim Road" or the "General Crook Trail," and Highway 191, also known as the "Coronado Scenic Trail Byway." To improve the communication network, they built telephone lines to the major Forest Service sites including many ranger stations and look-out towers.

In addition to roads and telephone lines, the CCC worked extensively to construct Forest Service facilities such as ranger stations, look-out towers, and campgrounds. Before the CCC worked on the Forests, there was little uniformity in the construction of these facilities, but when they arrived, their sheer numbers and tight organization allowed for the expedient and uniform construction of numerous new facilities.

For the ranger stations, the design chosen by Forest Service officials at the Southwest Regional Office was the "bungalow" style which was popular during this time; two examples of these structures remain today at Pinedale and Water Canyon. As for fire look-out towers, the Forest Service used prefabricated steel parts so as to construct the structures in less time and in many more locations. In the summer of 1933 alone, six towers were constructed on the Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests—Bear Mountain, Big Lake, Blue, Escudilla, P.S. Knoll, and Springer Mountain. Campgrounds were also improved with "Adirondak style" camping shelters, picnic tables, and bathrooms—which, many campgrounds, such as Blue Crossing, still have some of these structures in place today.

While construction activities were perhaps the more apparent ways in which the CCC contributed to the Forest Service, they also helped in other significant ways including: fire suppression (fighting fires), building fence, soil retention efforts, and rodent kills. Some of the work for the Eagle Creek Camp included building fence and drilling wells, which were critical efforts to improving the watershed in the area and in helping local ranchers keep track of their livestock. The Buffalo Crossing Camp was heavily involved with fire fighting, and in June 1936 alone, they fought over forty fires. The boys at the Los Burros Camp did a variety of stewardship jobs, including: rodent kills, construction of sixteen fishing ponds at the Pinetop hatchery, improving the water well at the Lakeside Ranger Station, and building a boundary fence between the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation and the portion of the Sitgreaves National Forest near Pinetop.

Considering the magnitude of the CCC, management was no small task. Although the Forest Service was not the only agency in charge of supervising the camps, they still had a huge responsibility in ensuring the enrollees received proper training and executed their work correctly. At first, there was shortage of supervisors to train and direct the CCC enrollees. In the Southwest Region, this urgent need was quickly met when Operations Chief, Hugh Calkins, contacted a dozen forestry schools and recruited several men to do the job. Their expertise was doubled up with more practical expertise from hired "Local Experienced Men" or LEMs to teach the enrollees how to perform everything from constructing roads and marking trees to fighting fires and building fence.

Theodore (Ted) Gerwitz was a mechanic employed with the Forest Service at the Los Burros Ranger Station during this time; he recalled how his job was to teach the CCC boys, "the art of mechanics and heavy equipment operation." Gerwitz explained, "We (the Forest Service) didn't have any equipment until the C's came. Everything was done by hand… After the C's moved in we got these motor patrols and all this fine equipment." The combination of "fine" equipment, several dozen experts, and hundreds of capable bodies was the formula for monumental change on the Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests. Gerwitz added, "Of course the C&339;s is what really put the Forest Service on the map, in my estimation. At the time the C's finished, the Forest Service was 30 or 40 years ahead of their programs."

The CCC program lasted until l942 when it was disbanded under the Labor-Federal Security Administration Appropriation Act. During the nine years it was in operation, the infrastructure within the Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests, and the Forest Service at large, grew and improved immensely. Communication and transportation networks were made fully functional, facilities were updated, and various stewardship efforts repaired past damage and prepared the way for more effective future management. Indeed, the physical contributions made by the CCC may be too long to list. Yet, while these contributions were important individually, taken collectively, they were much greater.

What the CCC did for the Forest Service, and the Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests specifically, was not only the establishment of infrastructure itself but, more importantly, the establishment of a more effective, more extensive structure for managing the National Forests. Individual infrastructural components—such as roads, buildings, and/or stewardship projects—would have had minimal value to the overall management of the Forests. Instead, the real success of the CCC's work was that it provided the agency with a large-scale structural network to operate from. While the addition of a few new roads, look-out towers, or miles of fencing would have been beneficial only to the specific areas in which they were located, the addition of several of these things all at the same time provided the Forests with a complete management transformation.

Looking back in history, the 1930s were times of both great struggle and also great change for the nation. Whereas the Great Depression served as an impetus for great social and economic changes, it was also the impetus for changes in the conservation of the nation’s natural resources. President Roosevelt had described the need for conservation as being of "definite, practical value, not only through the prevention of great financial loss, but also as a means of creating future national wealth." The CCC played a huge role in these conservation efforts as they helped to stabilize the condition of the National Forests at the present and also pave the path for better management in the future. In this way, the CCC may be regarded as one of the most successful conservation organizations as they fulfilled both the expectations presented by President Roosevelt and also the mission of the Forest Service to "meet the needs of present and future generations."

* Some past accounts use the spelling "Chevalon" instead of "Chevelon."

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Centennial Highlights

Spotlight Story: The "Army in the Trees"