Biography of Bob Smith
CCC Man, Company 906, Redwoods, CA & Co. 544, Camp Lava Beds, N.M.-6, Merrill, Oregon, Camp Prairie Creek, SP-8, Orick, Calif & Co. 544, Camp Tule Lake & Co. 544, Glenn Creek, YNP-7, Yellowstone, Wyoming & Idaho
I recently found a letter my father had written in 1988 in response to a request for information from a University of Montana graduate student working on his Master's thesis. The letter focused on Co. 544 while stationed in Yellowstone in 1937, however, the information and impressions are much broader. If you are still adding letters I would love to have it included. I don't know a lot of details about Dad's work with the C's, but I do know he worked in California, Oregon, and Idaho.
Curator's Note - Judging from the references to Glenn Creek and Old Fort Yellowstone, it seems Mr. Smith also served in Wyoming. From the photographs notes, it would seem Mr. Bob Smith served with Co. 906, Camp San Antonio, Camp William Canyon, Claremont, California, Prairie Creek State Park , Redwoods & Co. 544, Camp Lava Beds, N.M.-6, Merrill, Oregon & Del Norte State Park, Crescent City, Calif. & Co. 544, Camp Prairie Creek, SP-8, Orick, Calif & Co. 544, Camp Tule Lake & Co. 544, Canyon Junction, Yellowstone, Uplands, California & Co. 544, Glenn Creek, YNP-7, Yellowstone.
Here is that letter.
"We left Prairie Creek State Park (in the Redwoods) in May 1937, traveling by Pullman (3 men to a section...one in the upper bunk, two below.). Our meals were prepared on woodburning stoves set in boxes of dirt on the floor of a box-car; meals were served while the train was on sidings. I mention this because it was a change from the first trips on which we were fed in Dining cars. The food was so-so; our cooks did wonders with the supplies they were given, but I have always been a gastronomical idiot...finicky...and I survived in the C's by a steady diet of 5 cent candy bars and frequent sandwiches of sugar on a slice of bread. Two bars a day would require a good share of our monthly $5.00 salary. Sometimes when the food was worse than usual, I would seek work in the kitchen or mess hall. At one time a Government expert prescribed the "pearly diet" featuring hominy and I don't know what. It was supposed to sustain one man on 9 cents a meal or a day....I forget which. Only the neighboring hob farms thrived on it, and it was soon discontinued.
I recall no problems with sickness in Yellowstone, tho we had lost two men to Spinal Meningitis while in the Redwoods. Our unit had few discipline problems other than occasional thefts, and frequent intoxication. I believe that a modified form of "court martial" or hearings was held, and that dishonorable discharge was occasionally given. Once when an enrollee refused to work he was given a ration of potatoes and told "we are required by law to feed you, but not required to cook the food."
In the early days, (1933-34-35) integration had been attempted. When I joined Co 544 in 1934 it was a segregated unit, with a few Hoosiers, a few Buckeyes and a majority of Kentuckians. It was my observation that the Kentucks were better prepared for the type of work assigned to us, and more physically suited to perform it. Eventually a few West Virginians joined us, they too were well suited for work in the timber, and in the field. They were resourceful.
At Yellowstone we were stationed at Canyon Junction, and much of our time was spent in building the camp. I was soon assigned to a crew building a trail from Canyon to Mammoth Junction, under a foreman named Art Slider. Art was as short, muscular cowpoke, proud of his hard earned title of WORLD'S CHAMPION BAREBACK RIDER. Building the trail was a unique experience, because in the Coeur d'Alene National Forest we had been taught to build for firefighters and for packstrings; a relatively narrow tread, with brush clearance wide enough for loaded pack animals. The canyon Jcn trail was required to present a "natural looking" pathway, six to eight feet wide, with NO stumps or sawcuts visible. A fallen log was cut in short lengths and carried out of sight; or it was cut well back from the trail, and the visible ends were rubbed with dirt to give a time-worn appearance. Stumps were grubbed out or rubbed with dirt. Much of the timber was immature lodgepole pine; we cleared it from the path by rocking the trees back and forth until stump and all could be carried off. (Indian style?) A yellow bearcub was attracted to our lunches and met us every day. We assigned one man to guard the lunches and gave him a pickhandle to intimidate the bear. It worked! During lunch hour we built a raft and used it to approach a moose and two calves who frequented Ice Lake. As assistant leader in charge of that particular crew, it was my duty to record names of the crew, hours worked, tools used and tools turned in, and miles of progress per fay. We were expected to work steadily, safely, and industriously but there was no pressure to exert oneself on this or on any other job in the C's. There was a natural competitiveness among the men to perform well...not to impress anyone or to achieve promotion, but just as a matter of self respect, and pride of accomplishment. At no time during my 36 months of enrollment did I feel that we were on "make work" projects. Every assignment had a purpose, a plan of action, a goal to achieve, and a result that could be seen and measured.
There had been a time when membership in the 3C's was scorned by some who lacked the courage, the need, or the qualifications to participate. The scoffers have been silenced by the lasting evidence of the work performed.
From the first day of enlistment I felt that it was our Government's plan to provide meaningful work, a measure of education, financial assistance to our families, and a nationwide pool of military reserves in a country that would not tolerate conscription. The success of the C's was evident in the rapid mobilization for war when the time came. Camps were in existence, officers and leaders were trained, and many draftees were already experienced in the crowded, hectic, and confused conditions of mobilization.
I believe, too, that the SUCCESS of the C's was due to the separation of authority in our daily lives. The Army handled enlistment, shelter, food, clothing, medicine, education, and transportation. But the Army surrendered control of the working hours to WORK-ORIENTED Civil Service entities. They were organizations with great volumes of projects that had been planned and hoped for but with no funds and no manpower to carry them out. The GSFS, The NFS, SCS, BR and numerous State agencies all benefitted, and many of them look forward to a day when the C's will return in force to rejuvenate their public service programs. It is unfortunate that the military is still handicapped by a "make work" program merely for the lack of constructive goals other than training for war.
In answer to your question: yes, the CCC did change my life. It gave me direction and the confidence to proceed without fear of failure. Thru frequent change of camps, I acquired a knowledge of the geography of the West and of the lifestyles of its people; and a desire to become one of them.
In 1938 I paid forty dollars for a ten year old "Whippet" in Ft Wayne Indiana....headed it westward, and have been here ever since."
----- Sincerely Bob Smith
PS. I never did get to finish the Canyon Jcn trail; a Civil Service appointment to a camp in Indiana called me home just as our work brought us into sight of Mammoth Junction!
----- Letter and Photographs below supplied by Mr. Smith's daughter, Marilyn Anders
Jay_Anders AT msn.com
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Fire-break builders at work. Fire-break 100 ft wide at this point. 1934-1935 Co. 544 CCC Camp San Antonio Upland California.
“Wall No.8”, "Meat" Taylor and Bob Smith on Left. Co. 906, Camp San Antonio, Dec. 1934.
Harold Woodward (L), Freeman Swenson with Baldo (part Chow) and Red (hound). Co. 906 CCC Camp William Canyon, Claremont, California, 1934-35.
Fixing a Dike during the Tule Valley Flood, 1935-36. Ben Webster.
Camp Lava Beds. N.M.-6, Co. 544. CCC, Merrill, Oregon.
"We fought furiously, but in vain –", December 1936, Del Norte State Park, Crescent City, Calif. (Firefighting)
Bob Smith, taken from inside a redwood tree, Prairie Creek State Park, 1936-1937
Bob Smith, setting up the kodak, Prairie Creek, 1936
Lawrence Smith (R), Bob Smith (L), By A Redwood Log, 1936, US 101, Prairie Creek State Park.
Co. 544 CCC, Camp Prairie Creek, SP-8, Orick, Calif. on Redwood Hi-Way, 1936-37
Mess Hall, , Prairie Creek State Park. SP-8, Co. 544 CCC.
Evening Retreat Formation, Co. 544 CCC, Camp Tule Lake, (Developer’s mark, Leo’s Studio, Something? Place, Navarre?, Washington? Others just have numbers).
Bluff in rear overlooks Old Ft. Yellowstone where we were Quartered while building a new camp. Glen Creek, YNP-7. PAM 12/27, Photo by Middleton (Author’s note I speculate that PAM is Middleton's initials).
Snow Battle, Jan. 1937, Prairie Creek
Mess Hall in center background, Infirmary to Right, Glenn Creek, YNP-7, PAM 12/37.
Foundations Are the Hard Part, YNP, Co. 544 CCC, PAM 12-37.
YNP-7 is "Nuts n Bolts" Camp, Began Construction – Cleared Ground Oct. 15, Occupied Camp, Dec. 10th. PAM 12-37.
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