A Depression-era jobs program created today’s gorgeous lakes

Some of Kansas’ prettiest lakes came from a federal program started during some of our nation’s darkest times. The Civilian Conservation Corps began as a way to put millions of unemployed men to work. The lakes they created in Kansas are really just a side-benefit.

“The CCC was (President) Roosevelt’s answer to a lot of problems,” said Tod Bevitt, a Kansas archeologist and historian.“To get elected he ran on a platform of getting people back to work. He was also a conservationist with a background of wanting to work with the environment, to make things better.”

Roosevelt mentioned the Conservation Corps in a speech in March of 1933. By early April it was created and funded. A few weeks later, the first of nearly 3 million American men were signing up.

Most were just young men between the ages of 17 and 25, and desperate. Some special companies were formed of unemployed veterans of World War I.

Pay was $1 a day, meals and a place to sleep. Sometimes that was in tents and then barracks they built themselves of wood, stone or, in western Kansas, compressed dirt.

Through the Great Depression, Bevitt said Kansas had tens of thousands of young men in the camps, usually 200 to a camp.

“A lot of what they did were soil conservation projects, things like building terraces, waterways and farm ponds,” Bevitt said. “Today that’s clearly not their most visible work, but it was so important at the time with the Dust Bowl blowing away so much fertile top soil.”

But young conservation workers, mostly from Kansas, also created some of the first sizable lakes in Kansas to help provide water supplies for nearby towns and recreational areas. There were a few steam shovels and tractors, but most of the work was done by hand and with mules. Except for some wetlands, all of Kansas lakes are man made.

“The best way to keep young men working was to do most projects by hand,” Bevitt said. “They quarried a lot of native stone for dams, or rip-rapping ponds and lakes. A lot of work was done with shovels.”

Men spent a lot of time working mules that pulled sleds that scraped and hauled thin layers of dirt that eventually made lakes 30 to 50 feet feet deep, covering hundreds of acres. Millions of rocks were pried from the soil by hand.

After work and on weekends, many of the men took on-site classes. Many grade school drop-outs improved their reading and math skills. Others learned a skilled labor such as being a stone mason or operating heavy equipment.

The Conservation Corps faded away in 1942, after the U.S. entered World War II. But the program still left it’s mark.

“You had all these millions of young men who’d been used to working in camps together, keeping things in order and were able to use heavy equipment,” Bevitt said. “You know they were in great (physical) shape, too. The CCC experience contributed a lot to what’s now called the Greatest Generation as they left the depression and headed off to war.”

Bevitt said nearly all of those who worked in the Conservation Corps are gone now, but much of the work they did survives and provides recreational opportunities for the generations that followed them.

His research shows their projects remained a great source of pride for the once poor, hungry workers trying to survive the Great Depression.

“Later in their lives, a lot of those guys returned to the project they worked on, and they had some well-attended reunions,” Bevitt said. “They all seemed to take a lot of pride in what they’d created, and were so happy it was being enjoyed, still, by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Of course they had reason to be proud, they accomplished so much.”

This story was originally published August 20, 2017 at 4:53 PM with the headline "A Depression-era jobs program created today’s gorgeous lakes."