Marion's Civilian Conservation Corp

 I have put a couple of posts about the CCC Camp being here, but here is the full story from beginning to end.

MARION'S OWN CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS

1933 - 1936

Part of Marion’s past history that is now lost is the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC that was once located here. There is nothing left of the camp for one to even know it was here. But it was here, a town within it's own camp, and the men helped our county with many worthwhile projects. From the archives of the Crittenden Press we can read about their projects.

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Roosevelt's Tree Army

In the year 1932, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an effort to help the nation, started on a mission to help find an end to the rampant unemployment and economic chaos that gripped the country. He planned a fight against soil erosion and declining timber resources, utilizing the unemployment of our young men.

Then Governor Roosevelt revitalized the faith of the nation with several measures, one of which was the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) Act, more commonly known as the Civilian Conservation Corps or the CCC's. With this action, he brought together two wasted resources, the young men and the land, in an effort to save both.

He proposed to recruit thousands of unemployed young men, enroll them in a peacetime army, and send them into battle against destruction and erosion of our natural resources. Before it was over, over three million young men were engaged in a massive salvage operation.

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Marion's Civilian Conservation Corps. Company 1542, E-59

In May 1933, Marion finds out that Crittenden County may get a conservation camp from the forestry and soil erosion programme of now President Roosevelt, if Kentucky should use its quota of 5250 men.

If all the men are used it would be necessary to start ten forestry camps and sixteen erosion camps in the state. Most of the timber projects will be in the eastern part of the state and the soil erosion projects in Western Kentucky.

June 1933 – Marion was selected as the site for Crittenden County's soil erosion camp. Maxwell Park in Marion would be the selected site for the camp. (Maxwell Park, also called Cook's Park, was located at the present day site of Todd Riley Tool and Machine Shop on Moore Street.)

Plans were at first made to have a boy's camp here, but orders were changed and word received that veterans from the World War would be sent here instead. (Boy's camp was actually young unmarried men from 18 to 25 years of age.)

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Camp Marion’s setup.

The camp would be in Marion at least six months and probably two years, the Major stated. Work would be carried on in Crittenden and surrounding counties from this camp.

July 1933 – One hundred and forty-eight men are now in camp. Camp Marion is under the leadership of Lieutenant Trautman and Lieutenant Smith, of the U. S. Navy, John Staylor, of the U. S. Infantry and E. J. Rodenberg, U. S. Medical Reserve. Mr. Ashbrook will have charge of fieldwork, which will begin as soon as weather will permit.

The camp is looking better each day as they worked hard everyday to get things done. They constructed streets and sidewalks the camp grounds looked more like a city than a camp.

A large sign was being made out of rock showing the number 1542, and would be set in the extreme west end of the camp facing the street.

A bath house was also being constructed for the camp and it would have the most modern conveniences in plumbing.

Carpenters were getting started on the kitchen and are really getting work done, as the mess hall would soon be needed for the men and employees enrolled at the camp.

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The Fieldwork started

Fieldwork started soon after the men arrived. Thirty badly eroded farms were selected as sites for the first work. The erosion work on the farm of Mr. Conger and Mr. Cartwright has been completed and work will be started this week on the farm of Rev. Spurrier at Mattoon. Other farms that were included in this work were the A. T. Crider farm on Bridwell loop, the Cloyd farm on Crooked Creek, and the Terry farm land in Forest Grove.

Much of the lands of western Kentucky are good for farming. For that reason they were long ago denuded of their trees to permit cultivation. The land of this section is rolling, in many places quite hilly. With the destruction of the trees the rich, loose soil began to wash away and now about a billion tons of it helps to make up the Mississippi river delta. This is the sort of thing the CCC has set itself to stop.

A working force was ordered to a hillside farm, almost useless for any purpose whatsoever. It's waffled fields almost unfit for cultivation, affords no pasture, and would not support trees nor even weeds.

The men started constructing small dams, seldom more than 3 or 4 feet high and 15 to 20 feet long. The dams, placed up and down the length of each gully, helps stop the drifting of the soil. Gullies were leveled by shovel, plowing or scraping to a gentle slant. Small diversion ditches were dug across the top of each hill on the project, above the gullies. These gullies henceforth will carry only such water as falls on the hillside itself.

The dams place at the foot and the head of each wash were always built of native stone, for they must bear the greatest loads. Intermediate dams were constructed of logs, poles, brush, or wiremesh backed by turf, in bad spots stone is used again.

After this base work was completed, black locusts and black walnut seedlings were planted in the loosened, leveled soil behind the dams and over the entire extent of the project.

Almost all rain water would now either sink into the ground where it falls or be carried off by the diversion ditches. The trees will grow and the hollows behind the dams will gradually fill up with dislodged soil.

Marion Camp planted 120,000 black locusts, and 63 bushels of back walnut seedlings, on the farms where work had been completed.

Owners of the farms where the work was carried were to agree not to attempt to cultivate the land or to turn stock on it for a period of five years. At the end of that time each will be the owner of a fine stretch of recovered land, level, unmarked by weather and bearing a good growth of young trees.

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Camp Marion razed

On November 1, 1935, the camp was being abandoned, because the aim and purpose, that of soil erosion, for which it had been brought to this county had been accomplished.

In December 1936 we learn that Camp Marion was fast becoming a part of Marion's past history. The buildings are being razed and the materials being moved to other camps to be rebuilt. The first buildings to be wrecked were the four barracks, then followed the wrecking of the recreation hall, kitchen and officers' quarters.

After all the buildings were removed the grounds were put back in shape to return to the Playground Association, owners of the land.

Camp Marion was no more, and is now only a faint memory of Marion's past, but it's presence being here left a legacy to the people and to the land of Crittenden County.

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Soon, in 1935, another government project known as the Works Progress Administration or better known, as WPA would be coming to Marion and Crittenden County and we would also benefit greatly from this project, through the building of roads, several major structures throughout the city and county and the beautification of local grounds.