Grayson County TXGenWeb

Civilian Conservation Corps
Denison, Grayson County, Texas

The Civilian Conservation Corps, aka CCC, operated nationwide 1933 - 1942 as an attempt by the national government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression. The Department of Labor was in charge of selecting recruits from among the unemployed. The War Department was in charge with enrollment, physical examinations, transportation to conditioning camps, providing food, clothing and shelter during the reconditioning period and finally transporting the recruits to work camps. (Porter, Maj. John A. Porter, Q.M.C. "The Enchanted Forest". Ft. Lee, Virginia: Army Quartermaster Museum. Viewed December 7, 2019) Recruits were primarily young, unmarried men, ages 17-25 and from a family on relief, who lived in work camps, receiving $30 per month, with $25 being sent directly to the family, as well as food, medical care and other necessities. Assignments to states was random, so workers in Texas came from all over the country. Participants performed heavy, semi-skilled, outdoor labor. The young men were allowed to enroll in classes held at the camp or local high schools, earning credits from elementary level to college level. The camps list on "Civilian Conservation Corps Legacy" indicate they were racially segregated, indicated by a "C" following the company number, i.e. Lufkin Camp #838-C. The letter "V" indicated a company composed of military veterans, i.e. Canyon Camp 1821-V. "VC" was probably used to indicate companies for veterans of color. In some states there are company numbers followed by the letter "X"; that indicates a mixed race company, but there are none of the type listed in Texas.

The camp in Denison was established November 7, 1933 and designated as a "P" camp #857, indicating that the camp was dedicated to soil conservation work in a private forest. The camps of 200 men were supervised by the United States Army. Men that were enrolled to plant trees were called the "tree army".
Editor's Note: At this time the information for the Denison CCC Camp is misspelled as "Dunison" in the "CCC Camps Texas."

In 1933 the Sherman Chamber of Commerce initiated the efforts to create a complete public recreation center in Grayson County. Local funds were used to purchase the land for the project and the Federal government would provide the 200 Civilian Corps workers and all materials needed to construct the center.

In a little over 3 months land for the recreation center had been purchased and construction of camp quarters was hurriedly put into place for the arrival of 195 workers. The Whitewright Sun news article of November 2, 1933 stated that the workers on the recreation park would be from Wyoming and would live on camp grounds built on the former McCarthy farm between Denison and Sherman.

Company #857 was formed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. In early 1933 it then traveled to Wyoming before heading back south to Grayson County, Texas. The makeup of the company was constantly changing with new men joining as others were leaving, but Company #857 was never located at Wisconsin as stated on the historical marker.

About 3 weeks after the CCC workers arrived in Denison there was an outbreak of spinal meningitis. Mr. Stiillion, who had previous served a 3-year sentence for attempted manslaughter in an Iowa state prison, survived the disease and died in 1958 and is buried in Craig, Moffat County, Colorado.

The makeup of the unit house in Grayson County changed as the original group of men were gradually transferred to units closer to home and local men were assigned to the units. In December 1934 the 222 men forming CCC Camp Co. 857 boarded the Katy at 2:55 a.m. bound for their new assignment at Caddo Lake in East Texas. "Out of the tangled area that faced the corps on its arrival November 4, 1933 has emerged the beautiful 'Loy's Park'." They had park roadways, built a water tower from rocks scattered over the hillsides, built the dam that would form a 425 acre lake, built six picnic units and a baseball diamond. (The Denison Press, Saturday, October 13, 1934, pg. 1)