Civilian Conservation Corps at Rainier

The Great Depression was a hard time for families and from 1933 to 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) offered some relief.

Wikipedia states: It was a public work relief program for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments.

At CCC camp at RainierThe CCC provided jobs while creating a general natural resource conservation program in every state and territory.

Maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000; in nine years 2.5 million young men participated. Reserve officers from the U.S. Army were in charge of the camps, but there was no military training or uniforms.

Once the U.S. got into the war, the job market improved and the men were being drafted, the problems was shut down.

These photos were taken of a CCC group up at Mount Rainier. Pat Van Eaton says, “The CCC pictures are of the Nerada Falls camp . They didn’t worked mostly trails bridges and roads.” He adds, that his Dad, John Van Eaton, worked there too. (See images farther down the page.)

Photos courtesy of Pat Van Eaton. Click on images to enlarge.