The Advocate and Democrat

The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) was one of several programs designed to both help ease the pain of the depression in the 1930s and to help battle the erosion and destruction of the country’s natural resources.

In the case of John Ramsey, the Corp took him out of Vonore and into a lifelong career in the restaurant business.

“I was just out of school in 1939,” Ramsey, 86, remembered during a 75th anniversary celebration at the Tellico Ranger Station Friday, “and they sent me here to the first camp they built. I was put on kitchen duty and everything just took off from there.”

Ramsey has been in the restaurant business ever since those days. He and his sons now run Ramsey’s Cafeteria in Knoxville, something he doesn’t think would have been possible without the CCC.

“I was here from 1939 to 1942,” Ramsey said. “It was a beautiful place then and it’s a beautiful place now. Being here helped me so much in life.”

Quinton Bass, archeologist and Cultural Specialist for the Tellico Ranger Station said the former camp is what a ranger station should look like.

“You come to this place,” he said, “and you expect to see elves living here.”

President Franklin Roosevelt began the CCC in March 1933. He sought it as a way to recruit thousands of unemployed young men and put them to work battling the destruction of the natural resources in the area.

Before it was over, more than three million young men engaged in a massive natural resource restoration program nationwide.

The men were paid $1 a day and at the end of each month were required to send $25 back home. One former camp member said he was glad to get the money and be able to help at home.

From 1933 to 1942, these men planted three billion trees, built 63,000 buildings, 47,000 bridges, 7,600 dams, 8,000 wells, 3,740 fire towers and 100,000 miles of road. They also spent 4,235,000 people days fighting wildfires.

What now serves as the Tellico Ranger Station was the first CCC Camp in the southeastern U.S. and one of the first in the nation. CCC Company 1453 from Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., established it as Camp F-1.

The station is almost completely preserved as originally built.

The original “ranger’s house” located at the station was recently habilitated and is being used when needed as a facility to house research workers and various project volunteers.

A total of five members of the camp made the anniversary, recalling days from many years ago when they helped save the country’s resources.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat. com | 442-4575.