Marion Co TOC

       (Page 313) The Civilian Conservation Corps, more commonly known as the CCC, was an agency authorized by the Government under the emergency powers granted to the President and was set up in 1933. It had a two-fold purpose: (1) to give employment to young men who could not find jobs in the private sector, (2) to discipline and train these young men for public conservation work. These young men were trained to develop and conserve the natural resources by planting trees, fighting forest fires, building dams for water supplies, building terraces to prevent soil erosion and to build bridges over the streams. This program was formally organized by Congress in 1937.
       During the ten years of its existence-from 1933 until it was abolished by Congress in 1942 due to World War II, more than two million young men were trained by the CCC.
       Many of the young men in Marion County were enrolled in the CCC and received valuable training that helped to equip them for better positions in the private sector. They became heavy machine operators, bookkeepers, typists, secretaries, office manager, carpenters, machinists, engineer aids, and, perhaps, equally as important to them was the training and discipline given them in these camps that helped them to adjust to the military life that most of them became a part of from 1941 to 1946.
       The writer was one of the ten enrollees from Marion County who was assigned to a camp in the Ozark National Forest located at Fort Douglas on the Big Piney north of Russellville, Arkansas. We were designated as LEM, or Local Experienced Men, because we were supposed to know the difference between an oak tree and a pine tree. Much of the training in Fort Douglas centered around prevention and control of forest fires, and protection of the habitat of wild life species. It was a worthwhile program.
       A number of Marion County boys were enrolled in the CCC camp at Sage, Arkansas, near Melbourne in Izard County. This camp was more dedicated to soil conservation and one may see in that area terraces built more than forty years ago. Enrollees here also were trained in conservation of timber resources.
       The CCC camp near Berryville in Carroll County had enrollees from Marion County. This camp was primarily a camp for training men in soil conservation practices and developed leaders in the Soil Conservation Program administered now by the Department of Agriculture.
       (Page 314 Top) There were two CCC camps located in Marion County: (1) The Buffalo State Park Camp under the Department of the Interior was located just off Highway 14 South-near the Othel Langston place. When the Buffalo Park became a part of the State Park System, a CCC camp was established there to construct and develop the park.
       Thurman Lancaster, a member of the Arkansas General Assembly in 1937, resigned his seat in the House to become the first Superintendent of the camp; A Lieutenant Rowden of the U.S. Army was Camp Commander; Dr. A. W. Adams of Yellville, who had served many years as a physician on Indian Reservations in the West, was Camp Doctor; Sam Duren, a native of Yellville who was later to serve as County Judge of Marion County, was Camp Engineer; Ratio Parnell of Flippin was Camp Mechanic; Jewell Pangle of Georges Creek was Carpenter Foreman and Dick Pangle was Fore man of road construction in the camp. Ralph W. Wood of Flippin succeeded Thurman Lancaster as Camp Superintendent and served until the camp was discontinued in the early forties.
       Other names of Marion County men associated in the camp and development of Buffalo River State Park that come to mind are Ed Hill, Bob Dewey, R. L. Briggs, Elwood Balch, Jack Musgrove, Quinton Smith, Kenneth Mc Dowell. Many others whose names we don't recall played an important part in the development of Buffalo River State Park and the fruit of their labor can be seen from Buffalo Point which is now a part of the National Buffalo River System under the Department of the Interior.
       (2) The second CCC camp in Marion County was located in the Eros community just west of the Eros store. It was established in 1939 or 1940 and was primarily a soil conservation camp under the Department of Agriculture. Lieutenant Wilbur Beasley was Camp Commander. This camp was not as large as the Buffalo State Park Camp and, perhaps, its work was not as well known, but many acres of land were terraced, cover crops and trees were planted; ditches filled and erosion of valuable top soil was halted. A number of young Marion County men as enrollees in this camp got the training that has enabled them to become leaders in the conservation program and successful farmers in their communities.
       To the Civilian Conservation Corps and to many other of the so-called "Alphabet" programs-PWA, WPA, NYA, we voice our deep appreciation for what they did to lead a nation out of economic despair to the hope of a better way of life for all.