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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015
Courtesy Clatsop County Historical Society
Civilian Conservation Corps members pose along a forest trail.
Courtesy Clatsop County Historical Society
Civilian Conservation Corps members stand in front of the Peter Iredale shipwreck in 1936 or 1937.
The Civilian Conservation Corps in Clatsop County
By MAC BURNS
For The Daily Astorian
If you have ever walked on some of
the beaches of Clatsop County, hiked
up Saddle Mountain, enjoyed Ecola
State Park or enjoyed some of our lo-
cal forests and trails, you should pause
and say a sincere “Thank you” and of-
fer a hearty “Huzzah” to the boys of
the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Started in 1933, the CCC was one
of the earliest and most popular of
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal
programs. Over the next nine years,
his “Tree Army” consisted of 3 million
men who would make valuable contri-
butions to their nation, learn trades, un-
derstand military discipline, earn mod-
est incomes (and send a portion of that
income home to their families), and
most importantly, not get into the trou-
ble many feared from the unemployed
and disenfranchised. Enrollees dug
canals, built more than 30,000 wildlife
shelters, stocked rivers and lakes with
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and planted millions of trees. In fact,
the CCC was responsible for over half
the reforestation, public and private,
done in the nation’s history!
So, what did these men do local-
ly and where did they come from? In
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track this history as CCC camps came
and went, and, making the chore even
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mained but “companies” came and
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kept track of the companies as they re-
located from one camp to another, of-
ten across the nation. In the Research
Center & Archives of the Clatsop
County Historical Society is a publi-
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Barracks Civilian Conservation Corps
Ninth Corps Area 1937,” that provides
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companies found in Clatsop County in
1937. These include Camp Warrenton,
Camp Saddle Mountain and Camp Ne-
halem. Warrenton and Nehalem both
had companies that had been formed
in, and transferred from, Tennessee.
The men stationed at Saddle Mountain
came from New York and New Jersey.
planted in nursery plots and then trans-
planted on the beach.
Plants included European beach
grass, Holland grass, Scotch broom
and beach pine.
HISTORIC
Road building
PHOTOS OF THE WEEK
A very early CCC camp was Camp
Boyington, established in 1933. For a
time, almost 200 men lived there and
worked building roads. Located be-
tween Olney and the summit on the
Nehalem highway, the camp soon
gave way to a newer camp on the Ne-
halem River — Camp Nehalem, which
housed in 1937 the 2908th Company.
This Company was soon immersed in
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The bridge across the Nehalem
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work proceeded on the road up the
Nehalem River. This road will even-
tually connect with the Wolf Creek
Highway. This is the main project
now for Company 2908. It is just in
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trail construction project. Since the
company was organized there have
been more than 730 miles of tele-
phone line maintenance, 200 miles of
truck trail maintenance and truck trail
construction. There have been nearly
10,000 man-days spent in the work of
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Park work
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sent to Idaho (digging ditches and
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was on to Tennessee (erosion control),
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Camp Shelton, Fossil, Oregon, before
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Work assignments have included
improving of the state park at Saddle
Mountain, Tongue Point State Park
near Astoria and Ecola State Park at
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breaks, roadside cleanup and general
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season emergency calls included 1,241
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The CCC men also constructed a
trail to the summit of Saddle Mountain
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the highest peak. In Ecola State Park
Beach erosion
they constructed new roads, water
In 1932, a Camp SCS-7 was estab- systems, picnic areas, trails, the care-
lished in Warrenton for the principle taker’s house, a stone building and did
mission of combating beach erosion. forest cleanup.
The south jetty had played havoc on
The CCC camps made lasting con-
the beaches as far south as Gearhart. tributions to Clatsop County. While
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they existed they also had an imme-
Systematically, the [CCC] went to diate impact on the county. Food and
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sand which cut down the force of the cally. Men spent some of their earned
gales and tended to level out humps income in the community. The camps
within the area of severest erosion. IUHTXHQWO\LQWHUDFWHGLQSRVLWLYHZD\V
This outer line of defense was formed with locals. The local Chamber of
by a process of driving a double line &RPPHUFH PDGH UHTXHVWV IRU DV
of pickets along the full length of the sistance on special projects to local
beach. As the sands formed about the camps.
stakes, they were raised. Sands again
CCC boys also sometimes made
drifted around them, like so much WKHORFDOQHZV
snow. By regular raising of the pick-
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ets several inches at a time, the outer
Filling out an accident report, a Ci-
protective shield was soon doing its vilian Conservation Corps truck driver
work of sheltering the eroded areas who ran down a cow recently came
from further devastation. Then began WRWKHTXHVWLRQ³:KDWVLJQDOVGLGWKH
the drive to provide the denuded area drivers give?” He wrote in “I honked
with a new coat of grass and shrub- my horn and the cow rang her bell.”
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Mac Burns is the executive direc-
of work in which some of the hardiest tor of the Clatsop County Historical
JUDVVHVWKDWFRXOGEHIRXQGZHUH¿UVW Society.
Courtesy Clatsop County Historical Society
Civilian Conservation Corps members drive pickets to keep the beach from eroding.
Courtesy Clatsop County Historical Society
These are from a photo album of Francis Schmitter who died in the 1970s at the age of about 72 in Northamp-
ton, Mass., and was in the CCC in Clatsop County. They were taken in 1936 and 1937. He wrote on the photo
it is a “scene of the barracks. The left one is mine. Warrenton, Oregon.”
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