The Blog of Kevan Santos: 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.