This is an article that was published on Tuesday, May 15th, 1990 in the Austin American Statesman.
Carving Out a New Deal Niche.
Conservation Corps that trains to reunite at Depression Park. By Julie Bonin.
Longhorn Cavern State Park, More than 50 years ago, They began coming here, Young, skinny and eager for work. Small town boys from impoverished Hill Country towns suffering through the Depression, they grabbed at a chance for a steady work, three solid meals a day and a place to sleep.
In 1933,, President Franklin D Roosevelt had a plan to put hundreds of young men to work in the Civil Conservation Corps over a 10 year. Instead of standing in bread lines, they work to preserve and develop national resources, such as this State Park near Burnet, Texas. Anderson Van Dyke, 71,, recently returned to the park to prepare for a Conservation Corp reunion set for Saturday.
Scenes from the camp as it was 50 years ago came rushing back as he stood on a cement slab where the mess hall kitchen once was. He turned in a semi circle and pointed out where the freezer, the food line, the dishwashing station and the bakery were. ”This is something that’s never gotten out of my system, Van Dyke said. In my mind, I can see it all the time I’m out here”.
It was the same for Roy Thornblom, 74 years, James Slauson, 72, and Marvin Frizzle, 69, who all came to Conservation Corps Company 854 from San Saba. Van Dyke came from Salado.
Where Others see a field empty except for stone steps, the concrete slab, trees and shrubbery, These men see younger versions of themselves rushing to line up for food so good they still talk about it. ”I think we all gained weight”, Thornblom said.” You were introduced to a pick and a shovel. You had adequate clothing, 3, good meals a day and an adequate place to sleep”.
The young men had come out of desperate circumstances. Slauson’s father had left home looking for work to support a family of six, but came back unsuccessful. ”We’d hunt deadwood to make a dollar”, Slauson said. ”There weren’t too many rabbits somebody wasn’t after. But I look at it as being a lesson”. But if they had arrived scared and hungry, there was always somebody coming in worse off than they
I remember one kid came in, just as poor and skinny as you can imagine, wouldn’t talk to anyone and cried like a baby when his Mamma and daddy left, Van **** said. He paused. About a month went by and he got as fat as a little pig, and sassy. They all laughed and then said ”I was just nearly as bad. I looked around and I saw 200 men and said, look what I’ve got myself into. But it didn’t take long. You just fell in, did like they did”.
More than 1000 men worked for Company 854 from 1933 to the early 1940s. They signed up for six month hitches. They could reenlist, but only 200 were at a camp at one time.
At the Longhorn Cavern site, they built roads, excavated caverns and built an administration building from the rock hauled from in the caverns. Army officers who commanded the units were as unyielding as the granite. The CCC crews chiseled away at day after day. Frizzle vividly recalls being disciplined for cursing three months after he arrived. The Lieutenant called me in and said ”you didn’t curse when you came here and we are not teaching you to”.
Penalties for such insubordination ranged from washing dishes to peeling potatoes, to marching around the flagpole for hours at a time on the weekend. The enlisted men were paid a salary, most of which was sent home to their families. The man attended classes taught at the camps at night, as well as learning rock masonry, auto mechanics, engineering and other skills on the job.
Thornblum was a supply Sergeant, in charge of distributing the ill fitted blue denim work pants that were a standard part of the CCC labor’s uniform. Most of the pants were much too big for the men and when cinched in at the waistline, a couple of huge pockets bulged out in back, perfect for catching lit cigarettes. On weekends, they put on the olive green dress uniform ties tucked neatly inside their shirts, then loaded into a truck and went dancing or to a skating rink in Burnett.
For the men in Company 854. Everything in the park except an administration building constructed decades after they left, is a testimony to some of the best years of their lives. ”It seems”, Van Dyke said. Like a part of you”.
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