Transcripts For CSPAN3 Legacy 20240703

There we go. All right. So not many people have heard about camp mohican or are familiar with the work that did. Thats what were going to review tonight. If you came to our Program Last Year on, the civilian conservation corps that more widespread on the work of cc in the United States and in ohio tonight, were focusing just on mohican. So start with a brief overview of the program before we get to mohican. Youre all familiar with the great depression. By 1933, the Banking System had collapsed and over 25 of workers were unemployed. So obviously sites like standing in line for soup kitchens was common. People were st,ries were shut down, farms and homes were lost, foreclosure mills and mines were abandoned, and families were going hungry and looking for work and for food. They could as part of that. Franklin offered a new deal his platform for election as esidt. He won in a landslide against herbert hoover, promising multiple Work Programs such as the civilian conservation corps. The sec was actually developed when he was governor of york and it worked in the state, so he thought it should work across country as well within. A month of taking office, he proposed a full scale Conservation Program employing volunteer men and putting them to restoring and protecting americas or Natural Resources congress. Very quickly approved the program and on fifth 1933, the key was within two days they started enrolling members and within two weeks the first camp was established. So that shows how quick the program took into effect. If today you tried to start a widespread government program, itd be about ten years before anyone signed up. Here you can see fdr visiting shenandoah this in, w Shenandoah National park, 1933. This was actually june, early june. So the. Cc so you started on april 5th and by june there was camps. The men were already working by july, i believe there was almost 1500 camps already set up each usually had about 200 men. So thats how and how large the program was. The program became known as tree army. Their main goal was reforestation. They employed an employed unemployed, unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 26, primarily men whose families were already on government relief programs. So the idea was give these men jobs and money, and then that will help get them off of other relief programs to be employed. All recruits had to be healthy and were expected to perform hard physical labor. In return, they were provided food at least three meals a day, clothing shelter and they were also paid 30 a month. This was at a time where most couldnt find work period of that 30. So 25 were sent to your family at you only got 25 to keep for spending, which was probably a wise investment. So in the mohican area, this what the average farm looked like for centuries as soon as the settlers had arrived, most of them would clear cut land, turning the forest into farms. At the time they used traditional mold mold bought plows which would tell the soil its no use in a lot of the country. But the problem in this area is with all hills for centuries plow those fields and the topsoil away with the rain. So all the nutrients in the topsoil and after a hundred hundred and 50 years the fields werent producing anything. If youre familiar with the story malabar farm louis brownfield came in and promoted a lot of conservation efforts that pretty much saved agriculture in the midwest. This was before he took over. But this is about what it was like when he started as well. So this is what some of the fields look ke. You can see theres not a lot of trees in the background. You see a few. The fields are pretty bare bare. What trees are there . What what vegetation. Its mostly scrub you can tell the farms are not not wealthy by any means. Most of the houses look pretty rundown. The barns are rundown i know because of the black and its a little bit difficult to see but there are some ravines and goalies washing out in the fields because theres no erosion theres nothing that soil in the farms are you know this is in the mid twenties mid thirties. There is no modern amenities, theres no electric lines running it. Theres still they dont have indoor plumbing. And so people see these jobs in factories and, lets say mansfield nearby they know well life on the farm is difficult. They can move to the factory, move to the city, get a job in the factory and have those modern amenities. So of the farms in this area were abandoned by the time that the car came through. Heres anotr age showing ravines and its going all way down this field. So thats what it looked in this area. Now, in the 1920s, the state of ohio decided they to start saving some of this natural as i said, the forests were all being clearcut. There is diseases and insects arted purchasing lando they throughout the state to set up s. At this point there really was no state forest state park system set up yet. So this was the forerunner to that. But 1928, they purchased 500 acres of land along, the clear fork gorge, just south of perryville. The main reason was there was a large stand of old growth, white pine that they were trying to save at the time they, believed it was the largest stand in the state, possibly in the country of old growth. White pine. So they with 500 acres now, if youre not familiar with the gorge. It follows the clear fork river and kind of snakes back and forth. But what makes it unique is there is very steep that follow each side of it its about a thousand foot wide and with drops of over 300 feet deep. Sos t reaab for building in or building on because of the steep drops. It wasnt useful for farming and even timbering out was dangerous. So the only thing that saved the trees there is no one could use it for a profitable purpose. So it was left and thats really how the state was able to come in. The land wasnt valued worth much because no one could use it and it still had those white pines worth saving. Now, one of the First Property they purchased was the zimmermann farm here. And thats going to be a key point in the the history of camp mohican at this point. This is actually map from 1874 but by time they purchased it in 1928, we believe the farm was abandoned. Now, the original 2500 acres, were not sure the exact boundaries of the state does not have a map showing the original boundaries, at least that they have found yet. And we have not found it either. But based on auditors records, we do know the zimmermann farm for sure was part of it. And based on those plants, believe that these are the original 500. So as you can see, its not even connected at the time today theyre still privately and out there. But thats about what the park look like. Those green areas areas. And as you can also see so this map was made later in 1937. At the time, though, the only roads were right there that goes to paris ville and then over to the loudonville and then state route 97 down here. So this land in the middle, there are, no roads at all connecting it. If we go back to that last image, you can see a few driveways and thats it down here. And dont forget these driveways, not what you would experience today. Yes, its part of the state, but it wasnt it doesnt have. Well, you had the gorge in the middle so no roads were traversing that and then just it was you know scrub farmland there there wasnt a lot of transportation at the time were talking mostly horse and buggy there is no major highways, you know, built in this area yet. So thats why theres just nothing there because you cant extend a road across the gorge. So they just kind of avoided that and ran parallel with it. So later on they would build these roads. But at that point, just to the north and to the south was all that was there. So many of you may have heard about chestnut blight. It was introduced by to the United States the early 1900s and quickly killed almost all of the chestnut trees in the United States. The forests in ohio were filled with chestnuts. Theres estimates that over percent of mohican forest was at one time, chestnut, it fed a lot of people. So especially during the depression, not having the ability to collect those chestnuts either to or to eat was a big issue. And by the time the force had purchased the land, the chestnuts, dead people that were alive. The time said if you went out in the forest, it just looked like tombstones of all these dead trees standing, turning forest into a giant cemetery. And part of that problem is then fires happened. You know, obviously fires are an issue even today out west with a lot of the forests. Were very fortunate in ohio. We have not a major fire for quite some time. But in 1931, there was a major fire and it destroyed nearly 200 acres of the forest and, even more of private land surrounding the forest. So the forest at the time was only 500 acres and over 200 were destroyed because it just burned through all that dea timber. So these are images, the fire damage. I owheyre difficult to tell because of theonast. You can kind of see just some trunks back there. This is some burnt pine. Heres another image. And so it really destroyed the forest. There is a new threat facing forest as well. Blister attacks, white, pine and was spreading quickly throughout ohio the whole reason they bought the forest was to protect the pine. And then how do you do that when a new fungus attacking it . But conveniently, this was at the same time that this came about originally ohio ordered six camps. Of those six, one was supposed to be in mohican. Their goals were forestry, such as tree planning, Fire Prevention and insect and disease control. However, just days after they announced mohican, the decided lets take it off the list. The forest is too small. Half of just burned away. The other half about to die because of disease. So whats the point in wasting resources there . Luckily, local officials able to go directly to the governor, petition him. They performed their own private surveys showing there is work to do there. And so mohegan was put back on the list. So we kind of spoke how quickly the sea was put into action because the way they did that is they actually put the sea under army control. So they were not part of the army. They were civilian effort like the name says, but they were administered by the army they were equipped with Army Uniforms mostly World War One Army equipment. They had all the surplus, the tents everything, and they knew to train men and how to organize them. So all the enrollees were sent to fort knox, kentucky, where they werefitted, organized into companies ofpproximately 200 men, each. And then on june six, 1933, just two months after the cc was formed, 211 men were selected for company 1530 and assigned to sx 56, which was the designation for state forest city state forestry project at mohegan at the same time the state because they to invest in the forests decided need to expand it so they started trying to buy as much land as they could they initially authorized purchasing an additional 2000 acres. However just like today if word out that the governments willing to buy your land, your asking price goes up and no one wanted to sell the state even offered at four times the value of the land and people still held out. Eventually, the newspapers got involved and really started criticize people. They said if they the lands worth four times the value they should be taxed that four times the value and then small town that started shame some people so people did start selling but not nearly as much as the state hoped. The time the enrollees arrived only had about 750 to 1000 acres, which was still double what they started with. Ironically, every newspaper has a different amount of acres listed. We really dont know the size of it, but on june 22nd, company 1530 arrives by train and loudonville and so this is the man getting ofhe tin. And you can see theres already plenty of onlookers and, you know, a Big Government project, 200 people showing up to town. That would certainly some attention for their camp this site was selected. Now, remember, at the time, no roads going into the forest so that northern road i had pointed to is right here. So they rented land on the frank the farm, which is right along the road in order to set up a temporary the zimmermann property that i mentioned is down here. So here is the river and the the gorge and this is how far away they its about a mile. I took over an hour for everyone to transfer to that site, get all the equipment there and then get to work building the camp. So they put under e rection of captain and lieutenant huntley. Originally there were a few other commanders assigned above them, but the key was still moving a lot of pieces around. So within weeks everyone was changing personnel. But gunderson and huntley were two main ones over company 1530 for the duration and mohican. When you were in the camps, you were under army control. When you were out doing forestry projects, you were under state control. So john c dix s assigned superintendent of the forestry projects. Mohican. So they arrived by train at 9 a. M. They didnt arrive to the campsite until tenhen they got work building a mess, tent officer quarters, hospital and su tents. Ot have their first meal until 430, so im they were pretty hungry. And here you can see it looks like theyre finally a break. Some of them their muskets in their hands so that be about 431 this sure think i see my father standing right there which one of them okay or or Something Like that. Oh okay. Yep oh my gosh. What was his name . Raymond Charles Riordan calhoun. Okay. Okay. They take care of that because she thinks father is in the photograph and for the future. That was great. But lets hold questions silly and for the camera crew sake, because then theyll put a microphone on people. All right. After lunch, they set up tents. This was their temporary living quarters they were assigned eight men to a tent as. I said theyre mostly old world war one tents. And a lot of these early photographs, you see men without shirts on. Im sure it was hot, dirty work. However, at once camp was set up, the military pretty strict. You have to keep your shirt on when youre in camp. I dont know if that was across the entire army or just for the sea or if it was just camp mohican people said you have to be covered up at first camp life wasnt too bad. They got set up, but then there was a series of heavy rains and it turned farm into a swamp. So the men were not too happy. Especially because when the land becomes soaked, all the snakes come out. And there were a lot of snakes in the forest later on. We have a lot of records the men would capture and keep them as pets. The camp would create newsletters and there is always stories about if you feel something crawling up leg, its just soandsos snake that got loose. You know, some of were supposed to be up to eight foot long later on, they would breed the snakes and sell them to locals as pets. And then but when youre first getting set up and youre living in a swamp, not the best conditions. So they decided, we need a permanent spt does not and the zimmermann farm was selected for that site. It sits up high on a ridge, right along the gorge. There were no trees on it, so its already cleared land. And because its a high point, its one of the highest in the forest. Flooding was not a concern. And so thats where they got to. The biggest problem was theres no roads. As i mentioned, there was ju an older, abandoned driveway meant for buggies. Now, this one looks like trucks have already driven on it, but so the crews got to work. One of the first jobs they did was building the road, the camp, which mostly relied on hand sot was definitely difficult work as they were doing, the superintendents started out what the camp would look like. It would include staff quarters for both the forest and the Army Officers five barracks, a mess hall offices, recreation hall, latrines and tool sheds. And so this was drn ter on, based on what had been built. Although oe years some things did change. But this is the approximate layout now. At the time, none of these roads, this is the driveway that came and they later built into a road and. That building is, the forest office, if youre familiar with the layout today. So by midjuly they continued, they finished the mess hall, the latrines, the pump house in the sanitary areas. Its diff from where yore at probably, but if you closely lor aail the men are wearing say swank lumber company loudonville, ohio so if youre ank was a large hardwareand retailer in town and a lumber mill. So more than likely, most of the lumber and tools also came from there. So by the keep coming into town, not only did it help the forest, but benefited local businesses as well. They also hired local men to drive trucks and do other things that maybe the enrollees were not qualified to. And the Army Officers usually moved their families into town so that they could be nearby. So once all of those were built in midjuly, they moved the camps into, the what would become the permanent camp. So this is sitting on that ridge top shortly after they moved into the tents, scarlet broke out and the entire camp was quarantined. Fortunately, no one passed away. But just like were all used to quarantining, they had to get used to it as well, which is probably difficult when youre 200 men living in tents. It did take a while to drill a drinking well. Thats what took so long, but then they did move in and permanent barracks were not built until october. This is what the permanent barracks look like. Thats actually just tarps or tacked down. They were not intended to be permanent. These camps were thought to be pretty quick projects. You come in and you do the work and then you move. It was just tar paper. The interviews with enrollees said that there were a quarter inch gaps in the floorboard sides. So the cold wind, dont forget, its on top of a ridge with no trees, especially in the winter. Cold wind just comes in and blows right up. You can see a few chimneys there, coals burning stoves at the of the barracks. And that was their only of heat. And none of the barracks at mcgee can enymore. But this is at camp rabideau, minnesota, so it kind of gives dea of what it look like. Each barracks held about 40 men when they first arrived in mohican. They did even have steel cots. Those took about a year to start arriving. And so the way for your barracks when steel cuts is help beautify the park or the camp. So depending what you to improve the camp, you may get a steel faster than other peoe. Now, this picture was likely befo meshall was finishedit sws the men eating. Everyone pretty much ate at the same time your meals were scheduled. Breakfast at, i believe, six or 630 in the morning. You had lunch, noon and then supper at 530, then three meals a day was probably the biggest recruitment tactic for. The s. S. Dont forget were talking about during the depression when most people would go days without eating. And if they did, it wasnt a very, you know, good diet, there werent a lot of options. So when they started eating in the sea, they the average gained 1 to two pounds per month for. The first year, a standard meal. We have menus from camp mohican. It costs the message only about 0. 27 a day to feed a person, and the standard meal included items such as salmon, potato salad, tomatoes, bread, butter, coffee, veal and sauerkraut. So to go from eating almost nothing to that, you probably would gain a couple pounds in total. It only cost the government about 1,000 per year per to house, clothe and feed them for one year. The men worked for six and a half hours each day they would go out after breakfast, 7 a. M. , return to camp for lunch, then work until 430. After 430, they had to clean up before supper. You were not to eat unless you were clean. Supper was at 530 and then you were on liberty until lights out at ten. They did quickly find out that the rules were not specific enough and some of the men that were also said you had to be back by time for breakfast. So some of the men would leave, not come back until the morning. And they said, well, you never told us what time. We have to be back. So they quickly decided by, you know, 6 00 you had to be in camp, you could leave for the whole night, but as they were running on a generator, were out at ten early on. Most of the men did not have private vehicles. And as theyre a few miles away from town, it would be difficult to leave later on. Some of the men were able to save up enough that they did purchase their own private vehicles and then could go visit family town every night if they wanted. So the work they conducted, one of them was a fighting the blister, which i mentioned is a fungus that attacks the white pine. One of the advantages to fighting this is that it actually requires an alternate host to spread. So it requires a cool, moist environment, which obviously pine tree does not have. So in our area meant it would spread by gooseberries. It would grow in the gooseberry, spread to the white pine, and then germinate on the needles, the pine. So what they is, they actually assign crews to go and all the land and then you can them there digging up gooseberries and they would do that year round or, at least as far as the gooseberries were up. And just crews constantly for gooseberries and destroying them both the forests and on all the private land surrounding it, because obviously if you only do within the boundaries of the forest, it will spread. Now that doesnt like that hard of work, but it was actually one of the most dangerous because as i mentioned before, were a lot of snakes in the area and one of the most common was copperheads, which are a venomous viper native to ohio. There used to be a lot more this area than there are now. The crews reported killing about 3 to 4 copperheads every day. So if you assume you know, they were active for about six months over the nine years, the sea was in mohican. They probably killed. 6500 copperheads. May not be you know, environmentalists friendly today, but they certainly didnt to get bit also for anyone thats local gooseberries are pretty uncommon today and this is likely why both copperheads angus berries and one of the biggest jobs as i mentioned they were known as roosevelts tree army. So each they would plant thousands of trees. Here you can see a crew combing, the hillside in the back. Its pretty barren as well. And they would go along, usually planting seedlings, sometimes larger trees. It was a lot of pine, but they mix in hardwoods and other soft woods as. They usually only in the spring because that was the time to plant. But when it came time to plant you did not stop until you were done. Here i plantation thats about one years old, so you can already see at least all those old black dots. Those are trees that are now growing, probably 1 to 3 foot tall. And so that was the advantage of planning white is it grows fast it helps control the soil erosion and then quickly provides habitat for other wildlife. And you can kind of see, you know the large swaths of land that were forested. Now, i dont know the date of this picture, it may not have been right at the beginning as theres already multiple growing, but that gives you an idea of how quickly trees did start to have an effect. Another major project was construction of roads. Obviously, i said were none going through th forest. The fit e was to the camp, but quickly laid out a series of roads all throughout the forest on. Both sides of the river. This was not just for visitors to come have access to the forest, but for the sea themselves. If you have to cross the which you know, a thousand acres of land to do your work, its going to be a lot faster if. You can travel by truck rather having to walk, especially anyone has walked down the gorge and then back it again. And then you have to go back lunch so youre not going to have a whole lot of time working on the other side. Forest and improvement was another project. This was mostly clearing out all the dead chestnuts that still survived. Well, they dead, but they survived the fire. So there thats a pile chestnut thare reviewing they did build and operate a sawmill on site which allowed the wood to be used for their projects throughout the park. And the other one that everyone is familiar with is establishing a system of fire towers, telephone lines to help report and fight the fires during the dry seasons. Theyere at least 1 to 2 fires evy day, and n asmoke was spotted, including on private land, then all hands would report. Regardless of what they were doing, and try to extinguish the fire. Luckily, they prevented lot of damage. They did have some fires that were on private land, destroyed a whole farm, but they were able to put it out before it spread too far. The main anchor of the system was an 80 foot steel tower that was built along the gorge. It had a visibility about ten miles, and so they hired, a local man who ran the orchards, james stephenson, there you see one of his lower orchards and a higher one. He was ranger for ten years. There and became one of the faces of the forest. Eventually, they also a 45 foot pole tower on the other side of the gorge. And the purpose of that was to help triangulate the fires that way they could get to them faster that tower unfortunately, does not exist. It was built out of wood, but at the time it was useful, accessible to visitors to the park even at this time when the rangers were manning the top, there were always visitors. Welcome, come up and talk to them. So was not off limits and right away they became landmarks of the forest just like they are today. So life in the camps was pretty easy compared to, you know, life during the depression at home, as i mentioned before, they were standing in line for soup kitche or the unemployment officeere. They had steady jobs, didnt have to worry about where their ne meal coming from. They also had spending in their pockets in addition to all of that, the camps provided voluntary educational classes. So you could take normal, such as in practical english typewriting. You could learn new hobbies like leather craft photography and flower gardening, and also jobs skills such as heavy mechanics, carpentry and welding. And theres a much longer list than all of that. So these classes were a staple of all camps throughout the country. They did vary what was offered by who the educators were in the camp and what their skill sets. And so over the years we do the classes changed as well. Other recreational opportunities they had, each camp had library. We know that locals, the local camp, over 600 books in the library, they would rotate them out. They billiards tables in the recall, horseshoes, swimming, boxing wrestling and camp mohican even organized baseball, basketball and football teams and advertise in the paper supply against local towns and teams. They were not very good. We do have their records. It was usually a very ugly score, but im sure they still enjoyed it in their free time. So i mentioned after supper they had until 10 00. They were allowed to leave if they had the opportunity to. So they were able to go into town to watch movies, shop. And what most of them did was flirt with. The girls. Now one of the enrollees was alex james. Thats that young man right there . If he doesnt look too hap, its he wasnt he actually lied about his age. You had to 18 to join the cc. He was 15 but he thought it sounded pretty so he thought it was about like a summer camp. So he signed up he was 16. By the time he arrived in loudonville. Fortunately, he did end up in life giving interviews to a couple locals and we do have those records. He talked a lot camp life including things like they would put saltpeter in your coffee to try and kill your libido. He said that did not work but more importantly hes the reason that we know that winters were pretty harsh up on the hill there so bunk was in the middle of the barracks, which if you remember, was pretty long and just had stoves on the ends. He was in the middle and said, you did not get any heat there because it escaped before it got to the middle in the his boots would be frozen solid to the floor and he would have to knock off with something before he could put them on. He was assigned to a road and one day he had frostbite on all ten toes, ended up being for an entire month at the the sickbay which was a lot warmer than the bunk so he said that was actually the best part of staying in camp. He did end up staying in the s. S. C for a number of years he was actually transferred out of mohican after his first term, but later ended up out at yellowstone national. And so he did fondly of the s. S. And then later lived in columbus, believe he passed away in 2016. So in the camp some of the men got together and on their own decided to create a newspaper called the camp mohican aviator. They had naming contests they did not like. Any of the other suggested. So they stuck with this. Im not sure how they came up with aviator. The paper was vel done. It was actually printed in ashland, but as you can see, s photographs in it stories about the camp, stories about visitation to the forest, all the projects were working on. It included biographies of the officers so that you could get to know men better and it was so popular that not just locals subscribe to it. We have records, universities from across the country were subscribing to add to their records and it was full of advertise ments from local businesses. So it was completely selffunded by these advertisements. Now the state continued to buy land including where big and little lions falls are, and about this time Pleasant Hill dam was also proposed, which did not exist at this point yet. But in 1934, cpany 1530 was ordered to abandon the camp and relocate to shawnee fest in that months that they were in loudonville, they built 6. 3 miles of roads, improved 650 acres of forest, blazed 1. 8 miles of foot trails, built two picnic shelters, four picnic latrines, 1. 3 miles of fence, 1. 8 miles of firebreak eradicated over four or 4500 acres of gooseberries was conducted, 625 acres of timber survey, three miles of stream bank improvements constructed. A Community Lodge erected two fire towers. They logged 1200 man days of Forest Nursery work, 26 man days of fighting fires and worked in temperatures from. 20 to 100 degrees without losing a single man day. So they were a pretty productive group, but unfortunately they were ordered to leave and the camp was abandoned. They took everything with them except, the bare buildings. So even the precious cots left. But locals once started petitioning the government to try and bring Something Back to the camp they saw, you know, improvements being made in the forest. They liked what they saw and they knew that more could be done so. Fortunately, in of 1935, a new company was in after the cgc started. They expanded it. So originally it was only 18 to 26 years old, unmarried. They expanded it to allow veterans mostly from First World War but any veteran could apply did not matter if you were married if you had children your age did not matter. So this was one of the ways to get veterans back to work. And they would put them specifically in a veterans company. So that first group was younger men. This group was known as veteran company. 70 and they were assigned to take over. Unfortunately, we dont have a lot of photographs of what they did. We dont know if the state took many and they were just lost. The state never took many of camp life, but for that earlier camp. They had the with photographs they produced log at the end of their term that had lots of photographs had a list of every man that enrolled the Later Company we just dont have those records. So a lot of the photographs are not as good of quality and theyre from personal collections. We do know theres thousands of photographs that were taken because they mention it, but we just dont have access to them. So if anyone ever comes across photographs, we would love to see them. The forestry crew that was in charge of 1570 was under the command of. J. C. Settles but the most important name is joseph lansky. He was a landscape architect, and hes going to become pretty notable in the history of the forest. And it wasnt mentioned there. They did come up with their own newspaper as well. But instead of a traditional newspaper. It was called the mohican news, and it was of a catalog. There, no knock out magazine there, no photographs, just doodles from cartoonists the camp. It did not have advertising and it was not sold to anyone outside of the camp. It was meant just for the enrollees to share stories. So by this point, state had continued to buy land in 1935. They actually authorized purchasing an additional 5000 acres. But once again nobody wanted to sell. So by 1937, when this map was made, the forests only had 2000 acres, which is still double than what it was two years earlier. But as you can see, its grown quite substantially. The men were assigned to pretty much the same tasks as. The earlier camp in the spring of 1936 alone, they planted over hundred and 20,000 trees. But of the largest issues, as we talked about, the river runs right through the middle of the camp. The campus here through the forest, the campus here. And a lot of the land is south so getting over there was pretty the steep of the gorge made it difficult for trucks to get anywhere along the gorge and then they would have to go up trucked them all the way to loudonville and then south on 97 to access the south side now they could hike across there was a swinging bridge further up by what would become the lake. You can see the bridge right there. Obviously, the men could hike that well if you needed tools, equipment. There was also a stone quarry over here. Obviously youre not carrying stones across on a bridge. So all of always had to be trucked across. So that kind of created an issue with the forest where it was divided into two sections. It became known as par which are these four sections to, the north and then sou park, which was actually much larger. But as the camp was located and north bay to do all of that work, they still had to go around. So theres a low spot in the river in an area called hog hollow where they a temporary log bridge and trucks actually could cross this. However constantly flooded and washed out joseph just ask the architect actually at one point fell in and drowned before someone pulled him out. And in fact, this is a picture that he took and he the spot where he fell into, the river. Now, as i mentioned, pleasant dam had been proposed and work starting the kcc did not have any direct involvement. Construction of the dam thats under army corps of engineers. However as the valley where the lake would go started to fill up. They relocated neuville which is a village there. There were schools, farms. All of this was taken Eminent Domain. So what the forest, the state struggled to buy the land. But because this was a Flood Control project, they just use Eminent Domain to kick everyone out. So were trying to decide what to do with. This bridge that was along originally the clear fork river snake there before it goes into the gorge. So there is a bridge. And in 1937, the state bought it and gave it to the s. S. To move and replace that log. It ended up taking almost an entire year to move because, as you can see, as soon as they Start Building the dam, it constantly and so it would take months just to disassemble the bridge, move it to hog where the log bridge was, which then continued to flood. And so it took entire year to finish. But when it was finished, that was a major achievement in the park because now you could cross both visitors and the s. S. Could easily drive back and forth. This bridge would survive for a couple decades before it was replaced in 1969 by the Covered Bridge that is there today. The only real disadvantage to this one is it was a single lane. So as the park became busier then there was a traffic jam down here as people tried to pass an interesting story about this bridge is this was originally an loudonville a cross on main street across blackhawk. The 1913 flood washed it out and so it was salvaged and rebuilt on the clear fork outside. Neuville so this bridge has quite a History History now. All those forestry projects we talked about, this company continued to do, but just since the architect wanted to start beautifying the park itself as well and they used a lot of that stone i mentioned, they quarried out here you can see fireplace sie ey built picnic areas all kinds of trailside shelters this one has aat pump. This is a ng fountain. Thats the ranger, James Stevenson showing it off. And so the quickly became known as one of the most beautiful sites in the state. By 1938, they seeing over 10,000 visitors just on select. By comparison, if you look closely at that newspaper from 1934, i showed it said they average 125 visitors a day. So the forest was quickly becoming very popular. Some of the other projects they did, they built new picnic or added on to existing ones. This one was originally built in 1934, but they added on almost tripling the size of it. They made a number of improvements to other places the fire tower. They also moved so most people dont realize that today but that picture i showed before that was the original location thats not where its housed at where it stands today. So this is the current location. You can see theres not many around it and it kind of sits on a hill which youve been out there. You yll recognize that hill a bit. And this is that location today. So nothing is around it. But the original site was out here along the gorge. The reason they did it, obviously a Higher Elevation means they can see further as. They plant these trees and they quickly grow up. It reduces your visibility. So they need a Higher Elevation to see further in this picture. Can see the fire tower down here. Thcamp mohican across the gorge. So the river snakes thro their its difficult to see but right up there is the wooden pole tower so it was very close to the this is that Shelter House i just showed you and here. You can even see the piney ridge trail that snakes down to the river. That trail has recently been restored and its now accessible and this is the only known picture from the original site, the fire tower. So this is up top. You can actually see the river below by this point. You can see plantations of trees the gorge. Overlook would be right over here. So this is that whole area. The gorge overlook is now it made sense to move it. However, uscinski later on admitted it was the thing he ever had to do because this site was the most beautiful view he had ever seen in his life. On both sides, you could look down the straight down into it from the current location. You cant see the river at all. You can only see, you know, the of the gorge. So he was very it had to be moved because he thought that was the most special place in the whole fort that they also built the gorge overlook which at the time were planned to be stone towers. They later on change that term to observation platforms. So i dont know exactly what was, but they were all built out of sandstone from that local quarry. And we also know that they had an italian immigrant this actually had a lot of immigrants in it who had moved to the united become citizens and fought in the military. But this particular italian man was a skilled skilled with stone work and with a single small hammer. They said that he could shape a stone in seconds it would take a normal man with power tools, hours complete, and he could just go along and do it all. He built most of this himself, or at least shaped the stone for it. You can also see a drinking fountain down in the bottom thats no longer there, but this is the this would be the eastern part of the gorge overlook. And just since he also laid a number of trails through the forest, this one, i believe, is the south park trail. And theres a lot of stone retaining walls built on both sides. His favorite trail was the lions fall trail, whiche laid. Its stil the poparrail today. His greatest achievement, he said, though, s the park trail, which snakes from gorge overlook to the river. It was closed for decades, though, because it became pretty out and dangerous. Originally it was a much easier hike and stretched further along the hillside. But then after he laid out, they found out part of it went on private property. So he had to shorten it and it much steeper. And then mere months after they finished it, the bought the land that was. So they also built an additional swinging further down this was in the last few years recently so it is now accessible to the public. It is a completely new bridge. Its the same location and life in the camp, pretty much the same for veterans as the earlier boys that were there. They still had educational classes, recreational opportunities. The leather workers became so well known that local businesses would buy their stock to sell. This is actually a picture from loudonville fair. They decided to open up a booth inside the merchants tent. So in the display cases are some of their walletsurses that anthen theyecided lets display what were doing in the park and created these image boards to advertise the work that was going on there. They also hosted a number of activities every few months, some of it was family days where their family could come most of the enrollees were from northern ohio. So their families were nearby. We know a lot were from cleveland. So they were mostly ohio people and had a lot of visitors come visit during. Some of the events we know they went through over 3000 donuts. They also hosted every year an anniversary celebration. Usually in june, but celebrating the anniversary of camp mohican. This was attended by mayors, other elected officials from surrounding towns who would give speeches. The lhc marching band would play. They would then do demonstrations of forestry work and give tours to visitors. And these were always some of the most popular in the forest and boot camp. Mohican was also considered one of the most beautiful camps, at least in the state, if not the country. I had mentioned before to get steel carts. They had competitions to beautify the camp. One of those was they someone built stone walls around the mess hall. Later on they beehives they found wild swarms and decided lets build beehives. They had vegetable and at one point over half a dozen gardens, quite large flower gardens. Those ones were mostly maintained. An enrollee known as pop mccollum, who i have heard from locals, they remember him. He would come in and visit their family. There was one major difference, though, with camp 15, 70 years opposed to the earlier one, for about a year, it was actually a mixed camp with africanamerican enrollees in there as well. Now, the ccrc did allow africanamericans to enroll. There are normally assigned to their own camp. If youre familiar with camp rocky, which was outside of mansfield a short while, that wasnt all africanamerican group. This one, however, had one barracks of africanamericans. At first, they were segregated to a degree their lunch time or their meal times were different. Their was also at a different time, although part of that was because they were not welcome in loudonville, so they had to be trucked to mansfield to enjoy liberty. However, and unfortunately we dont have interviews or photographs with the africanamerican men that were stationed there. So we dont have side of the story. However, the mohican news which they did actually have a reporter, each barracks had a reporter that would tell stories. There were no complaints listed in that. And we do know from others that the white actually became Close Friends with the African Americans that were stationed there by the time that they were ordered leave, they were assigned to another. All of the men pitched in their own money to throw a lavish Farewell Party with, beer and cigarets and sandwiches for. And they hired a band from mansfield to come and play and that that issue of the newspaper everyone was just so sad that their friends were leaving so certainly saying it was the exact same experience it did seem like they got along pretty well. So that was for about one year that the african were stationed at camp mohican camp mohican. Now one additional aspect was that te school of applied sciences cooperated with state and eventually built camp case is located up here so the case school was engineering students and they decided that the at least this land from the state the camp was designed to hold 200 students in the summer you can tell theres only few buildings but over here is antentity, just like the camp mohican. So it was mostly a temporary camp and those students would then helped design roads, dams and other projects that the icc would build. Camp case would actually carry on a number of years past camp mohican but thats the site now. The Young Star Academy sits. So i had mohican news just like with the earlier being told to abandon. There were constant rumors that this would be closed down every time officials from loudonville, perryville, mansfield or even as far away as akron would petition the state to keep the camp open. Everyone enjoyed mohican. They liked the work that was going on. They wanted to see it continue. They were also had pretty ally in louis bromfield. He was a huge proponent of the pcc. If youre familiar with him at all. He had formed an Organization Called friends of the land that had a lot of allies in washington, and he was personally friends with eleanor roosevelt. So any time camp mohican was ordered to be abandoned. Local officials go to the state to petition and brownfield would go to d. C. And luckily they were able to stave it off. This is images from march 1940, where theyve ordered to leave. So they it the last of the mohicans. But then in april it says resurrect dead with a question mark. Unfortunately, even with all of that support, the fall of 1940, they were ordered to abandon the camp once one week before they closed and left one of the veterans, a 58 year old man named robert morse, was on liberty walking the camp with a friend and had a heart attack and fell dead. He is the only person that, when stationed camp mohican. So with all dangerous work they were doing, thats a pretty good track record. Now, after company left in that fall 1940, there were still petitions to reoccupy the camp. In april 41, the state or the cdc did assign company five oh to to come their jobs were the same, but mostly planning 22,000 trees. These ones were much they were four year old trees. So they took a lot more work to plant and they put those around Pleasant Hill lake, which was completed, they were only stationed there for a few months in the spring though. And then once again were transferred out. One of the issues is enlistment was dwindling, so early on, everyone signed up for the s. S. C, but by 1941, theres the economy is doing a lot better. People are able get better paying jobs, live at home you know do all sorts of thing they want theyre not under the army anymore. So recruitment is down. Camp numbers down and that and thats one of the issues. Ohio at one point you had 68 camps. By this point, they only have 28. So the fact that mohican has been open from the beginning is a miracle in its in july of 1941. So just shortly, that other company l africanamerican enrollees were actually sent to camp mohican to continue the work. Surprisingly, they were from company 1570. The earlier one. Now, we dont know if any of them were the ones that were here before, but it was that same company returning. They were only supposed to be here for two months and they ended up staying until april of 1942. So once they that was pretty much the end of camp mohican and bromfield had plans to turn into an objector camp. At this point, america was in the war. Unfortunately, was just cut for the s. S. The budget was up for renewal. And the government decided put the money into the war effort. So the ccrc was actually never officially it still legally exists, but it has not been active since 1942. Just because it has not been funded. So the work that the men did there in nine years transform mohican into one of the most popular places in the state, in total they planted over 1. 25 Million Trees and mohican and thanks their effort as this park became more popular, the state continued buy land today betwe state park and mohican state forest. At the time it was all just one entity n comprises. 5500 acres. In 1943. So as we mentioned, the camp was abandoned in 42, but in 43, the war department, which the camp transferred ownership of the buildings, the Ohio Department of agriculture which is where the Forest Service was part of the camp was dismantled and all that remains tay is the Forestry Offices were there. Now, that has been added on to not all original. And then also this tool. Which in 1939 and 1940 was built. Its got 15 bays. And so thats how we know its the original one is because they describe it in quite a bit of detail this tool shed is newer. They did have there, but i do not believe thats the same. So some of other things that remain the piney hill picnic area, the first one built, thats the one just outside of the barracks. This was built by the first men that were stationed there. There you can see an original photograph of it today. This one is not used very often. But i mentioned the piney ridge trail was reopened and that comes right off of the pavilion and goes down the hill. The north Shelter House this an area ks oapoint. So this is what it looked like. And was just this section in middle. And then just since he decided to add onto it tripling the size. So they added these two wings and on each wing is a large sandstone. Unfortunately this pavilion still remains. It is starting to become more. It used to be one of the most popular points in the forest because all these oak trees not very large yet you can see some already in that photograph. But it had great views of the gorge below. Nowadays, as its grown up, you dont have that view anymore and many people, since you dont visit the camp, they they dont even know it exists up there anymore. But it is becoming more as people begin to promote it online right outside of that. So this picture is taken from the parking area and that major job for the cc. Ally a they had build these massive sandstone retaining walls that, held the parking l because its built on a hill. Fortunately, the state has continued to use those even though theyve repaved the parking lot a number of times. You can see theyre starting to be on them. Thats natural sandstone, but many people drive right past and never even see these because when youre on the road above, theyre down below you. So if you get out and walk to the Shelter House and turn around, youll see these on both sides. s men working on were not sure, but we believe this is that italian immigrant that was a skilled stonemason. They also built a number of trailside shelters. We dont know how many. We think at least a dozen, both on north and south park. As far as i know, oy two remain today. Theyre both here located in north parkritlong river. If you take the road, the Covered Bridge to the class b campgrounds, youll pass both of them. This is an original photograph of this one. So not quite the angle. But you can see the river there and there as far i know, those are the only two that exist. If you go further down that road to the class b campground, you also find this original water unfortunately, the wooden that once was ot is gone, but the pump is still there and still works. And of course, one of the most defining landmarks today is still the fire tower here. You can see it under construction. D then theres still a large group early on trying to climb climb up into it. Now the top has not been opened for a number of years, but in 2005, the tower was restored, reopened. So you can climb it. It is showing its age. Its 90 years old. Fortunately and we have been told that the state, the local Forestry Office has petitioned the and is hoping to get funding, restore it so they dont know when that will happen. But we think in the next few years it will be restored and preserved. And then of course one of the most poparlaces today i still the gorge overlook. They built the large parking lot ing wall there as well as the actual observation platforms. These owing their age a lot more, probably because theyre more used. So we hope the state continues to repair those and said of tearing them down and replacing them in addition. As i mentioned, the lions is the most popular. That was just favorite and recently the south park trail has been reopened, which leads up to this point by the time the civilian conservation corps ended in 1942. Over 3 million men had served in roosevelts army and planted more than 3. 5 billion trees. To this day, the sea is responsible for over half the reforestation on both public and private land in the nations history so and that. Thank