Utah Centennial County History Series - Grand County 1996

entry road to the monument, but the work was interrupted by the start of World War I1 and the dismantling of the CCC camps.

In some camps, including Dalton Wells, spike camps were periodically established for small tasks outside the parameters and boundaries of the regular camp. Often of only a few days duration, employing a few men, the spike camps allowed for a greater variety of work assignments and locales while providing valuable services for widely scattered areas throughout the county. The Dalton Wells camp established spike camps in the La Sal Mountains, for example, and such camps certainly must have provided some relief from the baking summer sun in the desert range areas of the county where camp crews generally worked. Another spike camp was established for a few weeks in the area around Cisco.

Living conditions at the camps were spartan, with few frills. The recruits in Grand County camps were generally from eastern and midwestern states and lived in large, military-type, uninsulated, oneroom barracks while dining in large communal mess halls. The buildings were poorly heated in winter and hot in summer-especially those like DG-32, located in the desert rangeland. Recreational facilities-such as ping-pong tables, basketball hoops, and playing fields-were provided, as also were educational activities, including vocational classes and high school equivalency courses. Work often involved such hard manual-labor activities as shoveling, digging, cutting, and hauling material; but the work was limited to eight hours a day, allowing for much leisure and study time. Saturdays were normally days off, and recruits often headed to nearby towns-generally Moab for all the recruits in southeastern Utah-where they might spend any money they had on movie tickets, goods, or other entertainments, much to the delight of local merchants. They also fraternized with the locals, and although there were instances of trouble, these were few in number. A few Grand County CCC enrollees fell in love with either the landscape or one of the local young women, in fact, and remained in the county or returned there to live after returning home at the completion of their period of duty.22 Some projects were selected by local residents or groups, including the Stockmen's Advisory Board, chaired by editor Loren L. Taylor. This naturally found favor with local stockmen, particularly since projects were spread around so that, if possible, none would be left out. The