Watoga State Park — Two veterans of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) visited Watoga State Park on Saturday, along with family, friends and visitors, to celebrate their time in the historic work relief program and commemorate its massive accomplishments.

Park superintendent Mark Wylie welcomed CCC veterans Gail Phillips and Albert Simmons to the park Saturday morning.

Wylie and event coordinator Ed Hager, of Huntington, gave a talk on the CCC's accomplishments in West Virginia and across the country.

Between 1932-1941, about 55,000 CCC workers were assigned to 67 CCC camps in West Virginia

In the Mountain State, CCC crews built hundreds of cabins, picnic shelters, lodges and bridges, planted millions of trees, developed more than 30 state and national parks and parkways and built hundreds of lakes, ponds and swimming pools. CCC men worked on 918 West Virginia farms and implemented erosion control measures on more than 48,000 acres.

The CCC operated 10 camps in Pocahontas County alone: Camp Black Mountain, Camp Copperhead, Camp Loring, Camp Price, Camp Randolph, Camp Seebert, Camp Seneca, Camp Thornwood, Camp Watoga and Camp Will Rogers. CCC crews built Watoga State Park, Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park, Byrd Run campground and worked extensively reclaiming what is now national and state forest land.

Nationwide, more than three million young men worked in the CCC, building 800 state parks, 46,854 bridges, 3,980 historic structures, 204 lodges and museums, 5,000 miles of water supply lines and thousands of miles of public roadways.

The CCC, which some called Roosevelt's Tree Army, renewed the nation's decimated forests by planting an estimated three billion trees. The CCC also developed forest firefighting methods that are used to this day.

Nearly 225,000 World War I veterans had the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the CCC, and 400,000 CCC workers learned to read and write while working in the Corps.

Army officers and NCOs supervised CCC camps and the daily life was similar to that of a military garrison. Workers lived in barracks and had a morning formation for reveille, after which they ate breakfast and went to work.

"They stayed in barracks, they ate in messhalls and they drilled them," Wylie said. "The kind of stuff you would find in an Army camp. After breakfast in the morning, they would release them to the technical staff, and this was a group of carpenters and stonemasons and equipment operators and blacksmiths and these boys would learn a trade by working under these fellows."

Wylie previously served as park superintendent at Babcock State Park and has worked at several West Virginia state parks built by the CCC. The superintendent said the CCC quality of work has been unsurpassed.

"I think the quality of the work that they did is much better than the quality of the work since then," he said. "I have, in my 13 years here, had more trouble with the modern cabins, that were built in the 1950s, than I have had with the standard cabins that were built by the CCC boys in the 1930s. The construction is much sturdier."

Wylie theorized why CCC construction is so much better.

"Well, perhaps it's because they weren't going through the low bid process," he said.

In the evenings, CCC workers enjoyed good food and organized recreational activites. Cooking was one of the occupations trained in the camps and CCC veterans report the food was delicious. Organized recreation activities included baseball and softball, swimming, pool, music and playing cards.

The CCC provided a monthly paycheck, most of which was sent home to families struggling to survive in the midst of the Great Depression.  The CCC was popular at the time of its operation and it is widely regarded as the most successful of the New Deal programs.

After the talk by Wylie and Hager, visitors had the opportunity to chat with the two CCC veterans.

Simmons, originally of Durbin, now of Elkins, worked at Camp Watoga for one summer while still in high school.

"I had one more year of high school," he said. "They allowed me to enter in the summer, finish my high school and then come back and finish my enlistment. The summer of 1941. There wasn't any CCC after I finished my high school because of the war."

Simmons was assigned to work in the recreation office and helped plan after-work activities for the CCC work crews.

"They put me in the office because I knew how to use a typewriter," he said. "When I first went in, I went out with the road crew. I didn't know I was supposed to be in the office. I didn't even get a chance to pick up a shovel. The CO yelled at me, 'you're not supposed to be out here.' "

Even though Simmons only served one summer in the CCC, he said he got a lot out of it.

"You learn discipline, for one thing" he said. "You learn to care for your fellow workers or buddies and look out for them and take care of them and watch their back. You get a different outlook on life when you go through a period of training like that."

After finishing high school and finding a job in Washington, D.C., Simmons was drafted into the Army in February 1943. He was assigned as a military policeman and sent to the South Pacific with the 40th Infantry Division. Simmons fought in campaigns through New Britain and the Phillipines and was on a ship to Korea when the war ended. He served in the occupation force in Korea for about two months before shipping back home.

Phillips, of French Creek, drove a truck for two years at Camp Bowers, near Pickens, for most of his CCC tour.

Phillips said he joined the CCC "to make a little bit of money."

"They paid me $5 cash and sent the rest home," he said. "I sent $25 home every month and when I came home, it was all right in the bank," he said. "They never spent a dime of it."

"I started out working on a fire trail on a ridge," he said. "I carried logs with log tongs. Me and three other fellows. We carried logs from the fire trail off to the side and piled them up in a neat stack."

Phillips took it straight to the top when he heard of a truck driving job.

"I was talking one day to a bunch of fellows and they said, 'they're going to hire a truck driver,'" he said. "I heard it through the grapevine. So, I went and asked the forestry superintendent that evening, 'are you going to hire a truck driver?'"

"He said, 'well, we're talking about it.' I told him, 'if you talk about it anymore - you remember me!'"

Phillips got the truck driving job and helped build untold miles of roads in what is now Kumbrabow State Forest.

The retired mechanic said he enjoyed his evenings in the CCC playing pool and playing cards.

Phillips joined the Army in early 1943. Like Simmons, he was sent to fight in the South Pacific. 

On July 3, 1943, Phillips, a BAR gunner, was going to get ammunition for his unit when he was hit by a Japanese mortar shell, nearly tearing off his left arm.

Doctors saved his arm and Phillips endured months of rehabilitation.

Building on his CCC experience, Phillips went to work as a mechanic and only recently retired. Now 88, the CCC/Army vet is enjoying a peaceful life in French Creek.

Reunion organizers hope to locate more CCC vets, possibly in the Richwood area, to attend next year's event at Watoga.

The West Virginia CCC Museum in Quiet Dell is open seven days a week.  It is located off exit 115 from I-79 in Harrison County.