Category: Event Listing Date: 2015-06-03
Reunion Dedication
A.J. Williams, Iven Jacobson, Jay Hendrickson, Jayson Dykstra, Melvin Hermanson, Stanley Hawthorn and Walter Atwood talk about their time in the Civilian Conservation Corps.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Museum of South Dakota was dedicated on May 16, 2009. A reunion at the museum on that day brought several men together that had worked in the CCC.
It was created to solve two of the nation's ills - unemployment and deteriorating natural resources.
By 1932 one out of every four American men aged 15-24 worked only part time. Unemployment and soup lines were familiar to many families across the nation.
More than 50 companies - 29 composed of South Dakotans served in 49 camps at 46 locations: 28 camps in the Black Hills area; eleven full-time camps near Alcester, Belle Fourche, Camp Crook, Chamberlain (3), Columbia, Huron, Martin, Pierre, and Wall; two camps for three or four summers at Lake Andes and Presho; four for one summer near Belvidere, Canton, Lake Poinsett, and Watertown, and four on Indian Reservations.x
xDerschied, Lyle A. "The Civilian Conservation Corps in South Dakota, 1933-1942." Brookings, SD, South Dakota State University Foundation Press, 1986. No longer in print. Available at some libraries but may not be checked-out.