A Southwest Kansas Talk and Field Trip Opportunity

This past weekend the family made a trip to Meade County where I had been invited speak on the Civilian Conservation Corps in Kansas and the local area. Meade County was home to one of the few state park projects in the state, with work focusing on improvements at Meade State Park/Lake. Two different periods of work, involving two very distinct CCC companies, were carried out on the state property. The first crew was at Meade from 1935 to 1936 (Co. #4701), moving later to join the work over in Clark County. Later between 1939 and 1942, another group picked up the work on needed improvements around the property (Co. #4755). Company 4701 was comprised of junior enrollees, some from the nearby camp in Clark County with others filling out the ranks from new enrollments. Company 4755 was an African-American veteran camp that came to Meade from Marion where they had completed construction of a county lake there.

Company 4701 boys in barracks. (photo from Meade County Historical Society collections)

Company 4755 veterans setting earthen blocks in building construction.
(photo from Meade County Historical Society collections)

The opportunity provided encouragement to research the local papers for information on the camp and check on the availability of camp newspapers for both camps that provide great insight into the work and the lives of the enrollees. The Meade County Historical Society has acquired a nice collection of images and plans relating to the project(s). The trip also provided a chance to return to the locations of the Clark and Meade camps in a different season of the year to view the scattered remnants of the camps as well as view and enjoy the fruits of their past effort.

View from the canyon rim looking west across the Clark State Fishing Lake dam.

Foremen's quarters at Camp Meade. One of two remaining camp structures at the location.

In preparing for the talk, I also looked into another nearby project carried out prior to work in Clark and Meade counties. Construction of a lake in eastern Finney County, about 1.5 hours to the north was carried out in part by Company 729 who later transferred to Clark County. Meade news accounts mention a contingent salvaging buildings from the Finney County camp (Camp Kinney). This project/camp is one I had not previously visited so it made the list for a short stop on the trip home. There are a number of markers/memorials commemorating the CCC crew and project...a story for another time.

 View of Finney State Fishing Lake. CCC Camp Kinney
was situated on the ridge in distant background.

The presentation to the assembled members and families of the Meade County Historical Society was well received and produced some interesting stories afterwards related to New Deal work in the area including family members involved in WPA and CCC work). It had been awhile since I had worked on the CCC in Kansas and it was good to be able to share some about the important work done in southwest Kansas where three state properties owe their existence to the work carried out as part of the New Deal.

The trip allowed a visit to three different projects carried out by eight different CCC companies. The trip also took us by the general vicinity of at least six other project/camp locales (Kingman, Rozel, Marion, Council Grove, Reading, Osage City), most of which I have yet to visit on the ground.

What they did before the C.C.C. was their job

Columns 28 & 29 on the 1940 census concern an individual's "occupation" and "industry" respectively. As noted in a previous post some camps detailed an occupation for each individual enumerated at that camp. In other cases, this information is provided when the record of an enrollee fell upon one of the two entries located on each census page marked for collection of additional data. This additional information would appear at the bottom of the census page. To have this position of occupation and industry recorded instead of the more standard reference to their role in the camp is rare and, like level of education, offers a glimpse at the background of the individual enrollee. Most times enrollees are associated strictly with their then current work title, so terms like "laborer" or "field laborer" and "soil erosion" or "C.C.C." are typical as are other occupations around the camp and project such as "truck driver", "cook", "carpenter", "clerk", and "steam shovel operator".

At Neodesha, KS where Co. 784 was stationed, a group of 23 young men who were new enrollees were enumerated shortly after their arrival at camp. Eleven were identified simply as a "laborer" for either "farm" or "odd jobs", probably indicative of the youthfulness and relative inexperience of this group of men. The remainder included various occupations such as "deliveryman" for a "retail dairy", a "truck driver" in "road construction", a "blacksmith" in a "machine shop", a self-employed "carpenter", a "newsboy" for an El Dorado newspaper, and two musicians in Kansas orchestras.

Another group of 23 veteran enrollees, in Co. 4719 near Ottawa, KS exhibited a more varied list of occupations including seven identified as "laborer" for a variety of industries including "packing house"or "packing ind.", "farming",  "R.R.", and "contract". Others include a "lawyer", a "train messenger" for an "ex[press] agency" an "electrician" from a Topeka, KS powerplant, a "cafe operator", two farmers (and one listed "agri."), and two coal miners. Apart from the above mentioned reference to the railroad, a "fireman" and a "brakeman" are also associated with the railroad industry. Representing the oil industry are a "pipe fitter" and an "oil driller", and auto industry includes a "mechanic" and a "machinist". The list is dominated by blue collar type jobs that these men who were typically in their 40s and 50s, the backbone of an experienced labor force, might be expected to hold.

Finally, down at Parsons, KS, the 51 African-American junior enrollees enumerated for Co. 4717 are almost all identified as "field laborer" in "C.C.C. Camp" with others noted to be "cook", "truck driver", "mechanic", and "carpenter" that would fit with roles in the typical camp. A small group however have occupations listed that wouldn't seem to be part of a standard camp even though they are listed as "C.C.C. Camp". These odd jobs include "dry cleaner", "bell hop", "paper carrier", "musician", two listed for "housework", and three identified as "chauffeur". It is interesting that aside from musician, the occupations are all service-oriented positions.

Ultimately, the 1940 census data offers intriguing, if limited, glimpses of individual enrollees. While it is unfortunate that there isn't more information available for the various camps where more complete groupings of enrollees joined by their common link to the Civilian Conservation Corps would provide abundant ground for study, there are still excellent details that can be gleaned from the data with some investigation. I hope that this recent series of posts focusing on the 1940 census has demonstrated that.

C.C.C. Enrollee Education- Evidence From The 1940 Census

Another piece of useful information from the 1940 census lies in column 14 "Highest Grade Of School Completed." Using the 1940 census information available from a limited number of Kansas camps, we can see notable differences between the level of education listed among the older generation veteran C.C.C. enrollees when compared to that of the younger cohort of junior enrollees. This distinction is indicative of the "high school movement" that became the new paradigm for public education beginning in the early 1900s. While in the "common school" of the latter half of the 1800s, students rarely attended school past age 14, having attended up to six years of schooling by that time. By the time of the 1940 census, a public school system comprised of elementary, junior high, and high school levels was common in both urban and rural settings. Whereas in 1910 only 20% of 15 to 18 year olds attended high school and slightly less than 10% graduated, by 1940 those numbers had increased to nearly 75% attendance and more than 50% graduating (Goldin & Katz, 2008:195).

Our cohort of Kansas veterans comes from Co. 4718 (Spivey, Kingman County) and Co. 4719 (Ottawa, Franklin County) while the junior enrollees come from Co. 784 (Neodesha, Wilson County) and Co. 4717 (Parsons, Labette County). These companies are the only ones for which significant numbers of enrollees were identified in the enumeration at the camp and/or adjacent areas (as is the case with Co. 4719). The results are presented in the table below.

Highest Grade Level Achieved-  Kansas C.C.C. Camp Sample (Based 1940 Federal Census Data)
Grade	Company #4718-V	Company #4719-V	Company #784	Company #4717-C
Third	1	3
Fourth	5	4
Fifth	4	2
Sixth	5	3	1	1
Seventh	8	8	1	4
Eighth	37	34	3	10
Freshman-HS	3	3	4	7
Sophmore-HS	5	4	4	10
Junior-HS	4	2	1	10
Senior-HS	5	6	9	8
College Undergraduate	4	4	1
College Graduate	1	1
College Post-Graduate	1
TOTALS	83	74	24	50

The totals and distributions among the two veteran companies is very comparable suggesting that the totals may well be representative of veteran C.C.C. companies in general. A noticeable ceiling is found at the eighth grade level in both groups of veterans with right at 45% of the men completing eighth grade and around 28% having ended their education prior to this point. This total of 73% of veteran C.C.C. enrollees having completed no higher than 8th grade can be contrasted with the 73% of junior enrollees overall who had attended at least one year of high school. Over half of that number (54%) had completed three years of study and 33% had earned a diploma. Only one junior enrollee had continued on to complete any college while about 7% of veterans had attended college. By comparison, no junior enrollees had failed to complete at least 6th grade while 12% of veteran members had less than a 6th grade education.

Another point I found interesting is that while 80% of the junior enrollees in the Co. 784 had attended school beyond the 8th grade, only slightly fewer African-American enrollees (70%) had likewise. Both had comparable numbers that had completed at least three years of high school (58% v. 51%). A distinction among these two groups comes in the rate of high school graduation where 53% of Whites versus only 23% of African-American enrollees had completed their high school studies. This distinction probably has more to do with the fact that only 4 enrollees (17%) in Co. 784 were age 17 while 24 of the young men (48%) in Co. 4717 were 17 (including 7 of those who had attended three years of high school). Perhaps these differences are an indication of the relative level of need that their respective families were experiencing and their response to this as young men who might provide much needed additional support to their families. It seems apparent that educational opportunities for both young African-Americans and Whites was distinctly higher than that of their parents generation represented by the C.C.C. veterans.

2008  Goldin, Claudia Dale and Lawrence F. Katz
          The Race Between Education and Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Kansas C.C.C. Camps in the Census: A Closer Look

In looking at the 1940 census data for the Kansas C.C.C. camps, the first thing one notices is that several don't have anyone enumerated and most have only a handful of seemingly random people identified. These camps were all in full operation at the time and therefore would have had a full complement of camp officers and project staff as well as up to 200 or so enrolled men present. The camps were designated as unique enumeration districts in the census, just as small communities in townships would have been set apart. The intent was there to identify and document the camp occupants, but in no case do the numbers come close to doing this. Why? Well...

Twelve of the Kansas camps were comprised of junior enrollees, young men between the ages of 17 and 25. Standard procedure appears to have been to enumerate junior enrollees at home as opposed to the C.C.C. camp except in rare circumstances. For example, at the end of the record for Company 4717-C at Parsons, KS where 55 enrollees (including 4 from camp overhead) were counted, the enumerator, and company commander, Fred L. Eistrup, noted:

"Individual census reports were not sent out to parents from the C C Camp #4717 by the commander on the above 55 persons as they were brought to this camp the first week of April and stated they had not been enumerated elsewhere."

From this short comment, it is clear that part of the process included sending census reports to the homes of the enrollees to ensure the men were counted. In situations where new enrollees had apparently not already been enumerated at home, provision was made to do so at the camp. In Labette County at Parsons, a sizable group is recorded during the time shortly following a regular C.C.C. enrollment period, likewise at Neodesha in Wilson County where Company 784 enumerated 23 men on April 29 that were noted to not be in the C.C.C. at the end of that March (answer to question on Line 22 of the census record).  In Nemaha County where the enumeration date is in June, only three men were listed, each with the title "New Worker".

In other searches, I ran across C.C.C. junior enrollees scattered throughout the census in their parent's households. For example- James and John Helme ages 20 and 18 respectively in the the home of their mother in the South-Central Kansas community of Zenda. Both are listed as "Laborers" for "Soil Erosion", among the most common identifiers for C.C.C. workers in the state. In nearby Peters Township, 17 year old Henry Taggart is noted as absent (AB) and at "CCC Camp, Seneca Kansas". Others include Edgar Crampton, age 23, listed with his parents and younger brother in rural Morris County; LeRoy Banks, age 19, a "Laborer" for "Reforestation Project" in the home of his parents and younger siblings at Wellington; and African-American Frederick White, age 19, a "Laborer" for "C.C.C. Camp" counted among his parents and siblings in Ottawa, just to name a few.

Only two veteran camps were in operation in 1940- Company 4718 near Spivey in Kingman County and Company 4719 near Ottawa in Franklin County. The Spivey camp enumeration was the largest among of the Kansas camps with 88 individuals represented. Of this number, 77 of the men (87.5%) are single, widowed, or divorced. In other words they were by themselves for the purposes of census enumeration and would not be expected to have been counted elsewhere. Similarly, at Ottawa, only one of the 23 enumerated men (4.3%) was married. A search of adjacent enumeration districts in this case identified numerous married enrollees who were counted within their household along with a wife and often, other dependents. Elsewhere around the state, searches outside of the camp occasionally turned up associated members, most often camp or project leadership, all enumerated as head of a household that had been relocated to the project locale.

1940- Kansas Camps in the Federal Census

In the spring of 1940 there were 14 C.C.C. camps in operation around Kansas- 1 state park improvement (Meade Co.), 2 state lake construction projects (Clark and Nemaha Co.), and 11 soil conservation projects (Atchison, Cloud, Coffey, Franklin, Jefferson, Kingman, Labette, Marshall, Morris, Sumner, and Wilson Counties). Being a Federal census year, the opportunity exists for information about specific camps and individuals to be found among the voluminous records produced by the enumeration of the population in 1940. For my Kansas research, I used a couple of online resources, the most user-friendly and effective one being the open-access 1940 records at www.FamilySearch.org. For a search of the 1940 Kansas records, try this: 1940-census-kansas and choose "explore images by location", searching by the term "C.C.C.". The resulting total of 14 enumeration districts are listed by township, the individual camps visible as unique subsets- the equivalent of small communities in each township. The camps are listed by their project number (e.g. "SCS-9, SCS-32, SP-3, etc.).

C.C.C. Camps in Kansas Identified From 1940 Federal Census
County	Company	Project	Date Established	Project Type	Enumerated Individuals
Atchison	Co. 767-C	SCS-33	10/3/39	Soil Conservation	2*
Clark	Co. 729	SCS-12	11/1/34	Lake Construction	7*
Cloud	Co. 788	SCS-34	1/5/40	Soil Conservation	0*
Coffey	Co. 4702	SCS-7	9/29/35	Soil Conservation	0*
Franklin	Co. 4719	SCS-5	7/26/35	Soil Conservation	23*
Jefferson	Co. 1763?	SCS-9	1/11/36?	Soil Conservation	2*
Kingman	Co. 4718-V	SCS-4	9/26/35	Soil Conservation	87*
Labette	Co. 4717-C	SCS-31	7/29/38	Soil Conservation	55*
Marshall	Co. 2735	SCS-30	7/12/37	Soil Conservation	2*
Meade	Co. 4755-CV	SP-3	2/1/39	Park Development	0*
Morris	Co. 4703	SCS-8	7/25/35	Soil Conservation	0*
Nemaha	Co. 2735	SCS-16	9/1/36	Lake Construction	2*
Sumner	Co. 786-C	SCS-32	7/31/38	Soil Conservation	2*
Wilson	Co. 784	SCS-22	10/11/34	Soil Conservation	23*
*Number from camp only. Additional individuals from nearby areas may be associated.

While initially exciting to see the camps show up so readily, the accompanying records are of varying, and occasionally quite limited, value. "No Population" is the only comment for several camps while others have only a handful of individuals enumerated; sometimes consisting of the military and/or SCS overhead and supervisory personnel, sometimes enrollees, and occasionally both. A few camps have a couple of dozen or even dozens of men listed. In some cases, scanning records from nearby enumeration districts revealed additional camp personnel in private residences and occasionally I would run onto enrollees as well. At first glance, it seems enumeration among camps was random and without pattern, but after some consideration, more thorough searching of adjacent enumeration districts and sampling districts in communities and townships elsewhere around the state I gained a better understanding of the records (I think...).



 Despite the limitations of the data, there is still something that can be gained from the census records as they relate to the Civilian Conservation Corps and over the coming weeks I hope to present some of the interesting details I've seen in the Kansas census data regarding education of enrollees, ages (particularly among the vets), where the men come from, the likelihood that some if not many of the project supervisors and personnel may be tied back to other projects around the state a few years prior, even some insight into where some of the enrollees former employment/area of training may have been, and we'll look into the question of why many camp enumerations are seemingly missing (and just who some of those individuals were that can be found nearby).

An Addition to the Roll: Company 755 and Camp Lebanon

Recently I came across a photograph that identified a previously unknown (to me at least) Civilian Conservation Corps company that worked in Kansas. According to the C.C.C. Legacy camp lists, Company 755 worked on projects in Oregon and Nebraska. Apparently they also slipped in a short stint in Kansas over the winter of 1933–1934. The photograph in question is a panorama of camp buildings with the caption "C.C.C. Camp – Co. 755 – Lebanon, Kan. – Jan. – 1934".

Company 755, Camp Lebanon, Kansas- 1934 (Scott Stanton Collection).

The photograph is part of the family photograph collection of Scott Stanton whose grandfather Douglas Stanton, Sr. served with Co. 755 from the end of November 1933 through early April 1934 when he was discharged to accept employment back home at Logan, KS. Stanton served as a Local Experienced Man (L.E.M.) at Camp Lebanon.

Douglas Stanton, Sr., Camp Lebanon, 1934 (Scott Stanton Collection).

Interestingly, two accounts of C.C.C. alumni in Glenn Howell's "C.C.C. Boys Remember: A Pictorial History of the Civilian Conservation Corps" (1976) refer to work at Lebanon without noting Co. 755. However, Hugh Glenn's account mentions his friend "Doug Stanton" who he split costs with on rides home to Logan occasionally. Glenn's account is illustrated with several pictures, including a shot of Camp Lebanon from a different angle, as well as shots of the crew and the L.E.M. crew including Doug Stanton.

Company 755 crew in the field (C.C.C. Boys Remember- Hugh Glenn Collection).

Reviewing the Lebanon Times from September 1933 through April 1934 provided a nice account of the work of Co. 755. The company worked on a number of farms in northeastern Smith County, generally north of Lebanon. Their focus was soil conservation, much like that of the nearby Esbon camp, reshaping and filling gullies and building small earthen check dams, brush dams, and pond dams. The C.C.C. presence was the result of extensive work by the "Commercial Club", an organization of local business leaders. It is clear that local efforts hoped to land a major project building a lake in the vicinity of where the camp was located and disappointment is apparent in the eventual project focus although enthusiasm for the C.C.C. presence was overwhelming. It is also clear that those business interests that sought to bring the camp to the Lebanon vicinity were rewarded through the economic boost the camp naturally brought with it in purchasing supplies for camp construction, contracts for daily consumables, and the more limited, but still notable buying power of 200 young men during the duration of the camp.

Early on it was noted that the company that would be arriving was provided in part to keep a company from more northern climes in a location that would allow them to continue to be active during the winter. Presumably, although never explicitly mentioned, the company would head back north in the Spring. That is exactly what happened when Company 755 broke camp in Kansas and headed for Albion, Nebraska in mid-April 1934. The company, while coming from Oregon, was stocked primarily with new recruits from Nebraska when it arrived in Kansas. This and the fact that several thousand new Kansas recruits were coming into the C.C.C. during the third enrollment period led to the Nebraskan dominated Co. 755 to be placed on projects in its "home state" making room for a Kansas crew a short time later.

A number of details converged to complicate identifying this project previously-

1) The location of the camp was only about 6 miles west of another C.C.C. camp near Esbon. Lebanon is mentioned in other newspaper accounts I have researched from late 1933 and early 1934 (Scott County Record and Toronto Republican for example), but I had assumed that the proximity to Esbon simply reflected an alternate reference to that camp.

 2) Lebanon was the location of a camp only three months after Co. 755 moved on to Albion, NE when Veteran Co. 1778 arrived from work on Frontier Park at Hays. While it remains to be demonstrated, I assume that the original camp location on the Neal Brown farm north of Lebanon was re-occupied by this later company.

3) No camp newspaper to identify it in CCC newspaper collections. This also occurred with Co. 731 and Camp McGinnis north of Scott City at Scott State Park, another camp that was not noted on available lists of Kansas camps.

4) The short duration of the work. Company 755 and (the original) Camp Lebanon were only occupied between October 1933 through mid-April 1934. Again, this is a comparable situation to the Scott County camp.

Company 755 makes an addition to my roll of Kansas projects and camps. Now that I've had a couple of instances where projects and companies have limited visibility in the record (apart from National Archives research), I am going to have spend some time tracking down a few other inconsistencies  I've come across in my research mentioning the C.C.C. in places that had no camp nearby. With so much other research awaiting me, I've generally not given these oddities much thought. It is clear however that there is a whole facet of the Kansas C.C.C. history that will require some additional diligence to bring to light.

Woodson County Wanderings

Yesterday marked the first time in quite awhile that I made a field visit to a CCC project location. The destination was Woodson State Fishing Lake located a few miles southwest of Yates Center, KS. With the family in tow and a small lot of period photos to help identify construction and camp activities, we set out on a brilliantly sunny, breezy, late January afternoon.

Kansas Wildlife & Parks brochure PDF 

What a beautiful, secluded location! Tucked into a small valley in the oak filled hills of the Cross Timbers region, the 75+ year old lake still shines like a jewel. Despite the nice day, we had the place to ourselves.

Woodson State Fishing Lake looking northwest from CCC quarry locale.

Two CCC companies (Co. 1715 and 1709) were initially responsible for carrying out the lake construction, while a third (Co. 2735) worked here in the latter stages of the project, bringing it to a successful conclusion. The photos in my collection primarily depict the work of Co. 1709 from the earliest phases of construction to lake impoundment.

Mule teams and Caterpillar power (note Camp Woodson in background).

Lake Fegan dam and spillway from quarry locale.

A common decorative style using local stone to create columns and a castellated wall along the dam drive was employed at Lake Fegan where sandstone blocks form a row of columns on the downstream side of the dam and a decorative and functional castellated wall on the impoundment side.

Woodson State Fishing Lake- decorative stonework along dam road.

I have not always been successful in relocating remnants of CCC camps, even when having maps or photographic evidence of their locations. Camp Woodson was by comparison, fairly easy to identify with several landmarks tying historic photos to existing remains starting with a fireplace and chimney standing in a pasture adjacent to the lake property. Other areas of sandstone blocks, brick piers, brick and stone rubble, and scattered evidence of roads and other camp features were noted across the same short grazed pasture. Visible evidence of Camp Woodson was more limited on the lake property where thick stands of native grass and scattered thickets and trees obscured visibility. Additionally, it is clear that developments associated with the activity of the lake over the past 75+ years have impacted the remains of the former camp, but enough remains of the camp to warrant more formal documentation and mapping to record visible features. Interestingly, Camp Woodson was one of those early Kansas camps where boxcars were relied upon for some of the camp buildings (at least early on). I was pleased to see several instances of correlation between my period photographs and the modern landscape.

Fireplace and chimney of former CCC camp building.

My son and his big find- the flagpole base inscribed "CCC, Co. 1709, 1934".

Photo of Company 1709 at retreat (note flagpole and chimney).

The Veteran in the CCC

Although the typical CCC enrollee was 18 to 20 years of age, a portion of the allotment  was set aside for the enrollment of veterans of the Spanish American and, more often, the World War (I). While provision for these men was not made initially, Roosevelt made an allowance by signing Executive Order 6129 on May 11, 1933 as a concession to the second Bonus Army march on Washington, D.C. authorizing enrollment of 25,000 veterans. Qualifications differed from the junior enrollee; one needed to be certified by the Veterans Administration by application, they could be any age, and married or single as long as they were in need of work. Veterans were mostly assigned to camps comprised only of fellow veterans although this wasn't always the case. Company #4755 for example was comprised of junior and veteran enrollees initially before being divided during the work at Marion.

KANSAS VETERAN CAMPS

Company	Project #	Project Type	Nearest Town	Date Established
Co. 1778	SP-1 SCS-2a	Park Development Soil Conservation	Hays  Lebanon	7/22/1933 6/16/1934
Co. 1779	PE-206 SCS-2	Soil Conservation	Esbon Burr Oak	7/23/1933 9/1/1934
Co. 4718	SCS-4 SCS-36	Soil Conservation	Spivey & Osage City	9/26/1935 8/6/1940
Co. 4755	SCS-27 SP-3	Lake Construction	Marion & Meade	2/3/1936 2/1/1939

Lake Garnett, Camp Anderson, and Civilian Conservation Corps Co. #1715

 Photo of Company 1715, July 9, 1935

Source: Anderson County Historical Society collection (Merritt McDonald donation)

I finally had a chance this week to stop by the Anderson County Historical Society in Garnett to spend some time researching. I was met by longtime ACHS president Dorothy Lickteig who had mentioned in previous correspondence with her that they did have some photos of the CCC camp in their collections. While I spent the afternoon looking through Garnett area photos, pulling photos of the lake and camp, and scanning them, Dorothy graciously copied relevant notes from ACHS history publications highlighting the project from the perspective of the local paper.

The project itself involved the construction of a dam to form Lake Garnett, located on the north side of town. The lake and surrounding park property continues to be a center of recreation for the community today and was recently nominated as an "8 Wonders of Kansas" in the customs category.

PDF of Garnett's "8 Wonders of Kansas" nomination

Besides the lake, the location includes a number of New Deal era resources constructed by WPA and NYA crews in the late 1930s after completion of the lake including a swimming pool, football stadium, shelterhouses, restrooms, and picnic tables, of local stone and concrete creating a great rustic look to the park development.

Company 1715 came to Garnett in November of 1934 from the project near Toronto where work was ongoing to construct what is today called Woodson State Fishing Lake. The Garnett project received the support of former governor and then longtime U.S. Senator Arthur Capper whose hometown was Garnett. The work on dam construction was largely complete in the latter half of 1936 with other work wrapping up in late summer 1937.

 C.C.C. Camp Anderson Under Construction, October 26, 1934

Source: Anderson County Historical Society collections

Lake Garnett Construction- Clearing Location.

 Source: Anderson County Historical Society collections (Kenneth Knouse donation)

 Lake Garnett Shortly After Completion (note C.C.C. camp in background)

Source: Anderson County Historical Society collections

Former Birger Sandzen Student Turned Camp Artist- Joseph A. Johnson

 

While researching Company 4718 through the stories in their camp newspaper "The Gully Guardian" a number of engravings by the veteran enrollees were prominent in several issues. Some are not identified to a specific enrollee, but several images are attributed to a Joseph A. Johnson.

"The above linoleum cut by Joseph Johnson, a member of the camp, portrays the barracks skyline at the camp."

A couple of notes in the camp newspapers and a little follow-up research identifies Johnson as a former student of Birger Sandzen at Bethany College between 1924 and 1926.

"Joseph A. Johnson, war veteran enrollee of the Kingman county CCC camp toils on the soil conservation crew during the day, but that does not keep him from bringing his art to his environment. Horses, galloping across the prairie and pausing near the crew for a rest gave him inspiration for the linoleum cut presented herewith.

Johnson, formerly a student at Bethany college at Lindsborg has produced paintings which have won the admiration of students and fellow enrollees. A painting of an Indian girl has been exhibited recently in the window of the Kingman furniture store. An accomplished violinist, Johnson has provided music in local church services."

"Horses, galloping across the prairie and pausing near the crew for a rest gave him inspiration for the linoleum cut presented herewith."

  

Johnson's tenure as "camp artist" was relatively short as his contributions to the camp news come to an end in February 1937 when the editor notes that, "the two sketches drawn for this issue were the efforts of Joseph A. Johnson who has been our camp artist. He has checked out to try his luck in other territory. The Gully Guardian will miss his contributions, but we are sure his artistic ability and good nature will not go unrewarded on the outside."

 

 With that, Joseph A. Johnson fades into CCC history. There is relatively little information on him that I am able to find at this point, and even his time in the CCC may represent something new to anyone who knows of the artist.

The work of Co. 4718 continued in Kingman County until the end of July 1940 when the company moves "out of the dustbowl" and into my backyard to near Osage City in Osage County, Kansas. That's where my research was headed that day when I encountered Mr. Johnson and perhaps we'll visit these later exploits of Co. 4718 sometime down the road...