A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest 1770 - 1970

With his acceptance for the nomination for the Presidency of the United States on July 2, 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt made natural resource conservation a major issue of his campaign. Less than three weeks after his inauguration he asked Congress for legislative authority to proceed with a conservation program for the nation. Ten days later Congress had passed the Emergency Conservation Act of March 31, 1933, and President Roosevelt had signed it into law. A record for legislative speed. Throughout the programs established under this authority, the work carried on was identified as E.C.W. (Emergency Conservation Work).

Samuel Dana, in his textbook, Forest and Range Policy, tells us of this act and its development:

"The Act authorized the President to employ unemployed citizens on work of a public nature 'for the purpose of relieving the acute condition of widespread distress and unemployment now existing in the United States, and in order to provide for the restoration of the country's depleted natural resources and the advancement of an orderly program of useful public work.' The program was to be conducted on Federal or State land but could be extended to county, municipal, and private land for the control of fires, insects, disease, and floods. Research in forest management and wood utilization was also authorized.

"The duration of the Act at first was limited to two years, after which it was continued by annual appropriation until 1937. The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) was then formally established for a period of three years by the Act of June 28, 1937. The purpose of the Act was stated to be not only to provide employment in conservation of the natural resources of the country, but also provide vocational training, to which 10 hours per week might be devoted. Some educational work had been a part of the program from the beginning, but after 1937, it was systematized and extended. Further continuations kept the Corps alive until June 30, 1943, when it was finally liquidated by Congress.

"Enrollment was first opened to young men between the ages of 18 and 25, who were unmarried, unemployed, and had dependents. Later the age limit was set at 17 to 23; enrollees had to be unemployed and in need of employment, but were not required to have dependents. Compensation was $30 per month, of which at first $25 and later $22 had to be assigned to dependents, if any, with slightly higher pay for a few in supervisory positions. Provision was also made for employment of a limited number of Indians, of veterans of the First World War, and of local experienced men (L.E.M.).

"General supervision over the program was exercised by a director, Robert Fechner, with the assistance of several Federal Departments. The Department of Labor handled recruiting; the War Department operated the camps and ran the educational programs; the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior directed the field activities of the men. In 1939, the Corps was placed in the Federal Security Agency.

"Camps of 200 men each were located on Federal and State lands through out the entire country and to a lesser extent on private land. The first camp, on the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, was occupied on April 5, 1933, and actual work in the woods started on April 17. When the program was at its peak in 1935, there were 520,000 enrollees and 2,652 camps of which about half were forestry camps. Altogether the Corps gave employment to approximately three million men at the cost of some two and one-half million dollars.

"Never before had there been a comparable enterprise for the simultaneous building up of young men and of natural resources. No conceivable activity that would improve the latter was overlooked. The Director of the Corps reported more than 150 major lines of work that might be classed under the general heading of reforestation, forest protection and improvement, soil conservation, recreational developments, range rehabilitation, aid to wildlife, flood control, drainage, reclamation and emergency rescue activities. In forestry alone, the Forest Service estimated that 730,000 man years were devoted to such activities as reduction of fire hazards, construction of fire breaks, actual fire fighting, timber stand improvement, tree planting, and the building of roads, trails, bridges, telephone lines, lookout towers, and other permanent improvements. Similar results were accomplished in other fields."

While the Cumberland Purchase Unit had been established in 1930, funds for the acquisition of lands within the purchase unit did not become available until 1933 as a major benefit of the W.C.W. program. Dana tells us, "A highly important by-product of the C.C.C. was the great enlargement of the purchase program for the acquisition of National Forests. In order to make available more Federal land in the Eastern United States on which the Corps could usefully pursue its activities, President Roosevelt in May, 1933, allocated $20 million of emergency funds for the purchase of forest land under the Weeks Act of 1911, and the Clark-McNary Act of 1924. Subsequent allocation in 1934 and 1935 brought the total made available for land purchases to $44,534,500. That sum was 76 percent greater than all of the appropriations for acquisition made by Congress from 1911 to 1932. It resulted in the establishment of nearly 60 new purchase areas and in the acquisition of 7,725,000 acres, two and a half times as much as during the preceeding 22 year period."

Between the funds available for land purchases and some 15, 200-man C.C.C. Camps, activities on the Cumberland Purchase Unit expanded rapidly following the early summer of 1933. The basic improvements of forest fire protection and forest land administration, such as roads, lookout towers, telephone lines, campgrounds and similar items, were planned and their construction initiated. Many thousands of hours were spent in fighting forest fires which had been allowed to burn without restriction in previous years. Without the funds and work of the C.C.C. programs, the Cumberland National Forest might never have become established.

Despite the importance of this program to the Cumberland and the fine work accomplished by the C.C.C. Camps, the benefits of much of which we are enjoying today, little or no factual or statistical records remain in the files of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

From the best information available it appears that the 15, 200-man C.C.C. Camps were operated at one time or another in the Cumberland National Forest. They were located and identified as follows:

C.C.C. CAMPS ON THE CUMBERLAND NATIONAL FOREST 1933 — 1943

In addition to the C.C.C. Camps administered by the U.S. Forest Service, as listed above, there were four C.C.C. Camps administered by the State of Kentucky, and located as follows: Natural Bridge State Park, Cumberland Falls State Park, Stearns (Replaced by Forest Service Camp F-12) and Emlyn (on U.S. 25, south of Williamsburg, Ky.).

An excellent evaluation of the C.C.C. program as a whole is provided by Dana who states, "Taken as a whole, the CCC program proved to be one of the most constructive and most popular of all of the New Deal projects. In addition to achieving its primary objective of relieving unemployment, it gave some three million young men a new start and a new outlook on life, educated the general public as to the importance of natural resources in the national economy, expanded Federal ownership of forest lands, and accomplished much in the restoration and the improvement of our land and water resources."