New Hill City museum honors CCC
Growing up, I heard a lot about the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Depression-era federal program to put men to work. They built reservoirs, roads and buildings all over the Black Hills. My uncle Maurice worked at one of the camps as a young man. He always called it “the C-C,” apparently thinking the third C was unnecessary.
Today, visitors to the Black Hills can see the CCC’s handiwork everywhere. A few examples include Horsethief Lake, Sheridan Lake, Center Lake and many of the rustic buildings at Custer State Park. The Black Hills Playhouse campus in Custer State Park is a former CCC camp. The stone lookout tower atop Harney Peak was a CCC project.
Now there’s a Black Hills museum that honors the men of the CCC. The Civilian Conservation Corps Museum of South Dakota is located in Hill City, on U.S. Highway 385 just outside of town. It’s in the former Forest Service office.
Dedication ceremonies for the new museum are set for Saturday, May 16, at 1 p.m. The program includes an Honor Guard from Ellsworth Air Force Base, a commemoration of the bronze statue out front, a reception and museum tours. There will be CCC veterans at the ceremony, including Jay Hendrickson of Hill City, who is museum president.
Peggy Sanders, author of the 2004 book “The Civilian Conservation Corps in and Around the Black Hills,” is one of the museum’s organizers. She probably knows more about the CCC than anyone in South Dakota.
Peggy told me that 27,000 men worked in South Dakota’s CC camps between 1933 and 1942. Using old camp yearbooks and other documents, she’s compiling a database of all of them. “I have 22,000 names, and I’m closing in on 27,000,” she said. My uncle Maurice wasn’t on the list, not yet.
The CCC did most of the rural projects in the Black Hills. Another program, the Works Progress Administration, built several things in Rapid City, including Dinosaur Park.
She’s not sure how many of the CCC veterans are still alive. The youngest she’s met is 85. “The oldest is knocking on 98 years old,” she said. The museum to honor these men is definitely due, she said.
“It’s nice to be able to do this while they’re alive,” she said.
(In the photo above, crews are nearly finished with the building that is now the Peter Norbeck Visitor Center in Custer State Park. The CCC had some great stone masons.)
CCC was a big part of the Depression. Gave people jobs, and created things we still enjoy today. Maybe we need another CCC to keep people working and making America better. It would beat doling out money to the big banks.
Peggy Sanders has done an amazing job of preserving the history of the CCC’s in South Dakota. My father was an educational advisor for the CCC’s at the Fire Island camp near Pierre, SD, as well as living many years in Hill City and teaching in the local camps. I think the Americorp comes the closest to being like the old CCC’s. Americorp was joined by young men who were somewhat aimless – taught them skills, let them earn some money etc. It would be nice to see something like the CCC’s again but it would probably be buried in all the red tape surrounding such activities now.