Harmon’s Histories: CCC camps brought ‘young bear cats’ to Montana forests

By Jim Harmon

It began with the stock market crash in 1929, and lasted for 10 years.

The Great Depression saw factory closures and bank failures, resulting in massive unemployment and poverty. Twenty-five percent of American workers (15 million in all) lost everything, including their dignity. Photos of soup lines characterized the era.

The period is remembered to this day through music like the Tommy Dorsey’s “On The Sunny Side Of The Street,” Lena Horne’s “Stormy Weather,” Louis Armstrong’s “I Gotta Right to Sing The Blues,” and Bing Crosby’s “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”

It’s also remembered for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which featured creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (the CCC) to give unemployed “single men between the ages of 18 and 25 to enlist in work programs to improve America’s public lands, forests, and parks.”

Those who signed up “would make $30 a month, $25 of which would be sent straight to their families, while the other five was for the worker to keep. Meals and lodging were provided in military camp fashion.”

In June 1933, 21 “work companies” (a total of 4,200 young men) were organized at Fort Missoula, and ready to be sent to various parts of the state.

“Companies were sent to Ford Creek near Augusta, to Tally Lake near Whitefish, to Rexford, and to the Stillwater state forest camp. More men were placed in Packers Meadow on Lolo Pass.”

The Troy/Libby area in northwest Montana was a major the CCC destination, where workers were used for forest work and road improvements. Many of the young men had probably never seen a forest in their lives.

“A special train passed through Libby” in June, 1933, “and left 25 men for the the CCC camp on Pipe Creek. They were all Negroes from New York City. Another 175 Negroes will arrive next Sunday," the newspaper reported.

“Their work will chiefly be the extension of the Pipe Creek road to connect with one on the south fork of the Yaak River.”

At times they fought Montana forest fires, and did so to much praise. An article in Libby’s Western News said, “The willingness and courage of the enlisted men who fought the Sheep creek fire near Cascade” were remarkable.”

“Similar reports have been received from the Absaroka national forest where 100 enrolled men at West Yellowstone fought the Elbow creek fire.”

For entertainment, the CCC men loved playing baseball.

“The Libby Cubs lost a 10-inning thriller on the Libby diamond Sunday to the Colored Giants of the CCC camp on Pipe Creek, to the tune of 17 to 14.”

Boxing was also popular. “That’s a fighting bunch of young bear cats that Uncle Sam has shipped to the CCC camps at Troy and Rexford,” reported the Western News.

“If the husky young men who were the principals in those five bouts are a fair example of the two camps’ make-up, they are surely a sturdy and fighting bunch.”

The Forest Service also provided entertainment. Their “Showboat” truck, equipped with power and a portable screen, program “brought motion pictures and educational programs to the distant woods.”

There were a few problems in the camps as one might expect. The young men were not all choir boys. One man “went insane, and was determined to ‘preach.’ He was sent home.”

“A deserter from the army was found and arrested, as was a man who was wanted for bootlegging.” But those were the exceptions, not the rule.

When fall arrived, it was time for most of the CCC boys to head home. On September 29, 1933, the Missoulian newspaper reported, “The first special train carrying CCC members back to their homes in the east from the forests of the Northwest, went through the city Thursday morning.”

An estimated three million men served in the CCC before the program finally ended during World War II.