Yuma benefited from early stimulus program: Civilian Conservation Corps

While President Obama's current economic stimulus plan does not emphasize large public works projects, this was not the case in Yuma County during the Great Depression, when a program put people to work on irrigation projects.

The project was the Civilian Conservation Corps and its purpose was twofold: Put young men to work immediately and rebuild America’s natural resources. But the act was also meant to symbolically jump-start the national morale.

Its champion, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said in his speech to Congress: “More important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans, who are now walking the streets and receiving private or public relief, would infinitely prefer to work.”

Yuma County was a beneficiary of the CCC work in the 1930s, said Carol Brooks of the Yuma County Historical Society.

“Most of the work involved agriculture, specifically improving the irrigation canals. They dug the canals by hand, mixed and poured concrete for lining the canals and installed headgates.”

In the period between 1933 and 1942, more than 52,000 men worked in CCC camps in Arizona, according to the historical society. The first two camps in Arizona were the Pinal Mountain Camp just south of Globe and the Treasure Park Camp in what is now Coronado National Forest.

The CCC camp in Yuma was located about six miles east of town, directly beside old Highway 80. It existed there until the summer of 1942, when it was moved to an unspecified location elsewhere in the country as the program began to terminate.

As with all CCC camps, the camp in Yuma accomplished manual labor on local projects that would not otherwise be completed.

“They also built several water catchments up in the Kofa mountains,” said Brooks. “The purpose of these was to help the recovery of bighorn sheep. Many of these are still in place today, still serving as watering holes for local wildlife.”

A part of FDR’s overall New Deal program to bring the nation out of recession, the CCC became one of the most popular and successful of the recovery programs.

Just 17 days after taking the oath of office, Roosevelt spoke before Congress on the pressing need to create the CCC. Almost immediately, Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work Act and within two months, on April 7, 1933, a man by the name of Henry Rich became the first enrollee in the CCC. Two months later, by July 1, there were 275,000 enrollees in 1,300 work camps nationwide.

While the pay was not high, enrollees were still required to send allotments home to their families every month to help support them. It has been estimated the CCC program here in Arizona pumped more than $58 million into the state, while monthly allotment checks may eventually have totaled as much as $3.7 million, according to the historical society.

The CCC remained in existence for 10 years, from 1933 to 1942, when it was absorbed into the U.S. Army during World War II.

An unintended consequence of the CCC was that it helped train young men to become soldiers in World War II, according to historical society. Most camps consisted of barracks life in companies of about 200 young men living and working together in each camp.

The 10 years of CCC’s existence provided leadership and organizational skills that allowed many young men to step successfully into the role of a soldier. Even Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army's chief of staff, credited the CCC with helping to prepare and train young men for the war effort.

Today, the impact of the CCC is still felt by Americans. Some of the projects done through the CCC include Boulder Dam, Blue Ridge Parkway, Big Bend National Park, Carlsbad Caverns, more than 800 state parks, 32,149 wildlife shelters, 1,865 drinking fountains, 204 lodges and museums, 27,191 miles of fences, 8,304 foot bridges and 38,550 vehicle bridges.

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Watched dad build Grand Coulee Dam

Ray Johnson, a winter visitor to Yuma, vividly remembers the 1930s and 1940s public works projects aimed at helping the nation out of the Depression.

“My dad worked on the Grand Coulee Dam they were building up on the Columbia River," said Johnson, who resides in the summer in Chinook, Mont. "It was one of the largest public works projects ever undertaken.”

What puzzles Johnson is why President Obama's stimulus program isn't focusing on projects like that now.

“It seems to be a no-brainer,” he said. “(President Franklin D.) Roosevelt saved this country by using these big public works projects. I remember sitting up on top of the hill that overlooked the dam, watching my father and other men literally building the massive structure with hand labor. There were thousands of men employed on that project.

“All we seem to be doing now is passing out billions of dollars to banks and auto companies, and that doesn’t go straight into jobs. I doubt if anybody in the current administration could explain to me why they aren’t following the type of program that FDR used.”

Actually, Peter Orszag, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, explained why these projects are not going forward when he issued the January 2009 Congressional Budget Office Report.

“Practically speaking, however, public works involve long start-up lags. Large-scale construction projects of any type require years of planning and preparation. Even those that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”

So the simple answer seems to be that they can’t get these projects going quickly enough when the money needs to be pushed into the economy immediately.

***Click here for a slideshow of Yuma projects: http://www.yumasun.com/sections/slideshow/?id=455856