All for just a dollar a day …
No … not asking for a donation. ;o)
Sometimes during a hike through the Smokies, I get a little sense of amazement. Not from the surrounding beauty and the peaceful sounds all around. Those are a given. Once in a while I’ll stumble across something as little as small stone bridge, or as striking as the fire tower atop Mt. Cammerer – not to mention the very trail so carefully blazed under my feet – many with a little placard indicating that it was constructed more than 70 years ago by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
A part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, The CCC was implemented to provide jobs for young men from all over the Depression-scarred country who were skilled in masonry, architecture, engineering and landscaping. The goal was not only to boost the economy by giving badly needed jobs, but to restore and conserve some of our greatest environmental assets. In the early 30s, more than 200 men were placed in the Smokies to build roads, blaze hiking trails, build bridges, picnic areas and fire towers, plant trees, restock streams – you name it – all for an average wage of $30 per month.
The amazing thing is that, 75 years after the dedication of the Great Smoky Mountains as a national park, most of their work is still standing. The Cammerer fire tower, the Chimneys picnic area, the very monument from which FDR declared the Smokies as a national park 75 years ago yesterday, are all reminders of the hard work and dedication of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
