Community Corner
80th Anniversary of Civilian Conservation Corps- Alumni, Family & Friends invites to Reunion
On Wednesday, August 21, 2013, the DEEP will host a reunion of Civilian Conservation Corps alumni, family, & friends at 12 noon at the Chatfield Hollow State Park in Killingworth. They will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CCC by sharing their stories and pictures of the CCC camps.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began on March 31, 1933 under President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to relieve the poverty and unemployment of the Depression. The US Army supervised the camps which had from 200-250 men each. The first year 13 camps were set up in these Connecticut towns & state parks & forests: West Cornwall, Housatonic Meadows; Niantic, Military Reservation; Hampton, Natchaug; Haddam, Cockaponset; Stafford Springs, Nipmuck; Union, Nipmuck; New Fairfield, Squantz Pond; Cobalt, Meshomasic; Voluntown, Pachaug; Thomaston, Black Rock; East Hartland, Tunxis; West Goshen, Mohawk; Clinton, Cockaponset; West Goshen, Mohawk; and Burrville, Paugnut. The Army Government Dock in New London was the supply depot for all the CT camps.
In the following years these eight camps were added: Riverton, American Legion State Forest; East Hampton, Salmon River; Danbury, Wooster Mountain; Somers, Shenipsit; Portland, Meshomasic; Windsor/Poquonock, Experiment Station Land; Kent, Macedonia Brook and Madison, Cockaponset.
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Men 18 - 25 (with fathers on relief) enrolled for 6 months, worked a 40-hour week for $30/mo. They had to send $25 a month home. They got good food, uniforms, and medical care. At first they lived in tents; later they built wooden buildings.
Workers built trails, roads, campsites, & dams, stocked fish, built & maintained fire tower observer’s cabins & telephone lines, fought fires, & planted millions of trees. The CCC disbanded in 1942 due to the need for men in WW II.
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Author and historian Marty Podskoch will give a short presentation on the history, of the Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Connecticut. CCC alumni will have time to share their stories of their CCC camps both in New York and other states.
During the fall of 2013, there will be another Civilian Conservation Corps Reunion for Sunday, September 29, at 1 pm at the CT CCC Museum in Stafford Springs, CT on Route 190.
