Assignmnet #6 The Civilian Conservation Corps Tames the Evil Mountain

During the Great Depression the menacing peaks of Mount Diablo continued to loom over the East Bay. Thousands of migrants came to California having been promised jobs, only to find no employment and their condition worse off than before. Large scale public works programs were being formed under the "New Deal" projects. One of the first main works programs to gain popularity was the Civilian Conservation Corps, or simply abbreviated as the CCC. The CCC was created on March 31, 1933 with the signing of the Emergency Conservation Work Act by President Roosevelt (Engbeck). The CCC put over two million young men to work during it nine year existence. They were put to work by the government to fight forest fires, build fire roads and lookouts, and begin the conservation of America's natural spaces. By 1935 there were 30,000 CCC enrollees, mostly young men from all over the nation who could not find employment, working in California. Of that, about 7,400 enrollees were put to work in California's state and national parks. They built roads and trails though out the parks. They built the first utility systems, campgrounds and restrooms in the parks. The CCC also constructed the visitor centers and facilities needed to open California's state and national parks to the public.

It was in October of 1933 when the first CCC company came to Mount Diablo. I can only imagine what it could have been like for a young man arriving at Monte Diablo for the first time. The area in Clayton was still mostly small farms and only a few homes dotted the area. In October sunsets tend to give the sky to the southeast of Mount Diablo a sinister red color. Large harvest moons are also much more common in the autumn, and seeing a full moon creeping either up or down the peaks of the mountain will send shivers down just about any ones spine. Alone and most likely away from home for the first time the CCC enrollees had every reason to be slightly concerned about building on such a forbidding landmark.

The first CCC company to arrive at Mount Diablo was Company 590. Company 590 was from Kentucky and had received a two week training and conditioning course at the Fort Knox Army base. The Company had spent all summer working at the Calaveras Bit Trees State Park before being transferred to Mount Diablo. Company 590 would only remain to work at Mount Diablo for one year before being transferred to Elk River, Idaho. They would be replaced by two other groups of World War I veterans who were working for the CCC. The CCC completed its work on Mount Diablo in 1942. The Park would continue to expand in the subsequent decades, but it was the CCC who first opened up the Devil Mountain to the public. All of the traisl and roads constructed by the CCC are still in use today, only expanded on and maintained by the parks services.

There is no way of knowing whether or not President Roosevelt, or anyone working for the CCC, could have understood the impacts they made on todays enviromentalism. These were the first steps taken in the preservation of open and natural spaces that have become so important to our local community. The work of the CCC in California's state and national parks gave us a leg up in our modern "green movement" without even knowing it was doing it.

Here CCC workers take a break from constructing the summit trail circa 1935

The CCC began construction on the summit building in 1939. This view is overlooking the southeast toward Brentwood and Tracy.

Assignment #5

For this weeks assignment I wanted to gather some excellent photos of "The Devil Mountain" both from my own personal collection as well as from other sources. The picture above is the western side of the mountain, with Highway 24 in the foreground.

This is an awesome panoramic shot of Mount Diablo from Wikipedia (I know we are to avoid that dreaded website at all costs, but it was the only place I could find this picture. And since I am studying a Satanic mountain, it was temptation that led me to Wiki). The link here provides a much sharper and better picture than the on on the blog. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Diablo_Panoramic_From_Newhall.jpg

This is a photo of the south side of the Summit-Building, which serves as a visitor center, natural history museum, airline beacon, and fire lookout. As one of the tallest land marks in the visible vicinity, at 3,864 feet in elevation, it made a perfect choice as an observation deck. It was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that began construction on the Summit-Building in 1939 and completed it in 1942. I will detail more about the specific CCC company that built the trails and buildings in the park in my next blog.

This is a very rare photograph to capture. This is Mount Diablo when hell freezes over. This is from last December of 2009 when a strong arctic storm from the Gulf of Alaska blew in dumping a few inches of snow throughout the Bay Area. Since Mount Diablo is at a high elevation it received a few feet of snow. Usually each winter brings only a few inches and a dusting of snow to only the peaks of Mount Diablo, such as in this photo:, but never anything as spectacular as the top picture.

These are two photos I took from last December right after the snow fell. I finished my last final for the quarter and rushed up to the Mountain so as not to miss an opportunity such as this. In the photo below you can see exactly where the snow line had melted to.




Below you can see Mount Diablo looming over downtown Walnut Creek in a foreboding manner.









This last picture is an awesome 3-D image of one hiker's trip up the Mountain. You can see the towns of Walnut Creek and Clayton in the foreground at the foot of the mountain. The image also gives incredibly detailed topography of the northwestern face of the mountain, the side I grew up looking at.
Here is the link to see the above 3-D Image from its original homepage. It is much larger than the blog would allow me to put on here http://www.rebeccabond.com/blogpics/2009_01_24/MountDiabloEmilieHike.jpg