We stopped for a few days at Heyburn State Park in Idaho, just a few miles south Coeur d’Alene. It’s the oldest state park in the Pacific Northwest (created in 1908), and once was under consideration to receive National Park status. Much of the area was cleared and built up by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s. The CCC was a key part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
During the approximately eight years of its existence, the CCC implemented a general natural resource conservation program in every state and territory. Enrollees planted nearly 3 billion trees, constructed more than 97,000 miles of fire roads, built lodges and related facilities in more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded many state parks. It was called “Roosevelt’s Tree Army”.
From one source, “…it left a legacy of strong, handsome roads, bridges, and buildings throughout the United States”. Between 1933 and 1941, more than 3,000,000 men served.
The Tree Army’s legacy is still obvious almost a hundred years later in beautiful places like Heyburn State Park, where families can retreat from day-to-day busy lives, bond around the campfire or over a game of UNO at the picnic table, and recharge. In my opinion, we need places like this now more than ever.
Change topic — many public campgrounds can be reserved online via Recreation.gov or ReserveAmerica.com. The service is not free, but it’s easy and convenient.
What’s sometimes disappointing, though, is when you see campsites that someone reserved, but no one occupies the site. I’ve observed it for years. It seems so wasteful. The sites are not expensive — about $20/night. But another family could have used that space. *Sigh*
My dad actually worked in a CCC camp in Mass. He was an electrician and told me a great story how he had to leave very early one morning before the rest of the camp woke up to work on some power lines. When he arrived back at camp late in the evening, everyone was either on the toilet or vomiting. Apparently they all got food poisoning at breakfast except for my dad, he was the only healthy one. (pretty funny). Times were pretty hard back then and these CCC camps were a ray of sunshine for a lot of lost souls. As a result a lot of the intra structure in our National and State Parks still exist today from there hard labor.
That’s interesting about your father and very funny about the food. But since he was the only healthy one did he have to clean and care for everyone else ? Lol.
She’s chilly…
And so very cute!
Sally looks so cozy!
Looks like Sally had the right idea…I am enjoying my free mornings now that school has started. There are lots of CCC projects here…lots of hard work that gave men the sense of value through work. Makes me wonder where the women were…I guess home keeping the home fires burning…
It’s amazing to see how well so many of the New Deal programs were executed. It makes me wonder what their keys to success were.