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From: "Ralph Poore" <>
Subject: RE: 1935 C.C.C . Camps
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:39:15 -0600
In-Reply-To: <003a01c54204$840a5820$0201a8c0@Linda>


Linda:

Go to the Civilian Conservation Corps alumni website at:

http://www.cccalumni.org/

Under the Alabama state listing there is a camp: TVA-12, 3488, operating on
8/8/1935 in Russellville.

Also look at the JAMES F. JUSTIN CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS MUSEUM at:

http://members.aol.com/famjustin/ccclink.html

You can also get any CCC files on your Dad's service from the National
Personnel Records Center.

Below is an article I wrote about getting CCC records a couple of years ago.
Hope this helps.

Ralph Poore
3440 S. Brookshore Place
Boise, Idaho 83706


Every state and most communities contain parks or other projects constructed
by young men who served in the Great Depression-era Emergency Conservation
Work program, better known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

The CCC, one of President Roosevelt’s New Deal projects, began in 1933 and
ended with the beginning of World War II. Under the program, CCC recruits
planted trees, pruned and harvested trees in state, municipal, and private
forests. These young men built recreation areas and beautified picnic, camp,
and park grounds. The young men also constructed shelter belts, fire lanes,
trails, and rural roads. The Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail
are examples of some CCC projects that are still around today. Perhaps your
ancestor helped build these or other projects.

In 2003, the nation will mark the 70th anniversary of CCC and now is a good
time to learn about your father or grandfather’s service in the CCC program.
More than 3 million young men joined the CCC and their records are available
to genealogy researchers. You can gather a wealth of details about your
ancestor’s life from his CCC file in the National Archives.

I learned from my Dad’s records, for example, that he lied to the
Mississippi welfare representative who interviewed him as a prospective
recruit for the CCC program. My Dad, not yet 17 at the time, told the relief
agent that he was almost 19. The program accepted only young men between the
ages of 18 and 28. My Dad may have lied because he and his impoverished
parents needed the money he could earn — $30 a month, $25 of which was sent
home. Recruits retained the other $5 a month for personal expenses.

Or perhaps the recruiter, taking pity on the Poore family, simply entered
the higher age himself, because my Dad, at 5-foot, 7 ¼-inch, 111-pounds,
certainly didn’t look nearly 19. His application also indicated that he
hadn’t participated in activities such as the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, or 4-H
Club, activities that the recruiters usually looked for in the youth they
offered applications.

You, too, can discover these kinds of details and more in your ancestor’s
records.

In your CCC research, start by writing the National Archives and Records
Administration, National Personnel Records Center, Civilian Personnel
Records, 111 Winnebago Street, St. Louis, MO 63118. In your letter, explain
that you are interested in getting copies of the records of service with the
CCC for your ancestor. Provide his name, Social Security Number, and birth
and death dates. Also list the Federal Employing Agency, in this case, the
CCC. If you know it, include the CCC’s company number and the federal or
state agency the camp was assigned to. Initials, such as “F” for Forest
Service or “SP” for State Parks, designated the agencies. If you know the
time period your ancestor served, include that as well.

You also need to provide proof of death.

You can expect to receive your ancestor’s Application for Enrollment that
lists a home address, place and date of birth, education, community
activities, last job held, work experience, Record of Service in the
Civilian Conservation Corps, CCC work record, health exam, and discharge
information. In my Dad’s case, these records indicated that he had served in
more than one CCC camp, which I hadn’t known before.

You can request a search for photographs by e-mail at .
Provide the same information as in your request for records. Be sure to
include your mailing address because a report of the results of the search,
which takes two to four weeks, is by regular mail.

You can find out about life at your ancestor’s camp, although not
necessarily specific information about your ancestor, by requesting the CCC
camp inspection records for your ancestor’s particular camp. To get these
records, write to the National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road,
College Park, MD 20740-6001. Provide the same information on your ancestor
as in the other record requests.

What you will receive from the National Archives are forms for ordering
copies of the files they find. These forms include a brief description of
what is in the files, the number of pages, and an estimate of the cost of
copies. You pay the estimate, but you are billed for the difference if the
cost is greater. A word of warning — these estimates are notoriously bad. In
my case I received an estimated total of $25. The final bill totaled about
twice that.

These inspection reports include camp commanders’ reports of the activities
of the young men, including work and recreation. Of particular interest to
me were the mess hall’s daily menus that told me my Dad got hearty meals
three times a day. I also learned that the camp inspector found bed bugs in
the bunks and ordered them cleaned.

To learn more about the history of the CCC program, an excellent Internet
source is the online publication by John C. Paige, The Civilian Conservation
Corps and the National Park Service, 1933-1942: An Administrative History,
National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 1985. It is located at
www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/paige/index.htm.

Another Internet source you should check is the Civilian Conservation Corps
Alumni web site at www.cccalumni.org.


-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Stiles [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 2:46 PM
To:
Subject: 1935 C.C.C . Camps

Can anyone tell me anything about the C.C.C. camp in Russellville , AL in
1935? I just received some old letters that my Dad wrote when he was at a
C.C.C. Camp in Russellville.
Linda



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