Volume 43- No. 33
by Dan A. D’Amelio
In 1992, my wife Fanny and I retired, sold our home in Connecticut and bought a twenty-seven foot RV (we never had one before) and made like gypsies for five years, traveling around the United States, often camping at state parks. At one of the first state parks The Paper - 760.747.7119
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August 15, 2013
we camped at, Silver Falls State Park in Salem, Oregon, we saw a camp that was built by the CCC for the Y.M.C.A. in 1938, which consisted of a number of log cabins with stone fireplaces. Soon after, in other state parks, we hiked trails developed by the CCC, crossed bridges they had built, and visited museums they had put up. During the five years of RVing,
we camped at many of the hundreds of state parks that had been built by the CCC and learned a great deal about the corps by talking to park rangers and by reading about them at the park information centers.w Much of what we learned I recorded in a daily journal I kept during those years. (A journal is something I always keep whenever my wife and I
take extended trips—or when a subject interests me.)
From its first year, in 1933, until the program ended in 1942, the CCC built 125,000 miles of roads, 48,854 bridges, 204 lodges and museums, brought electricity to millions by stringing 89,000 miles of wire, developed more than 800 state parks, including most of California’s state parks,
“The CCC - Then and Now” Continued on Page 2