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. Ople were starving, factories were shut down, farms and homes were lost, foreclosure mills and nes 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 en as president. He won in a landslide against herbert hoover, prom 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 y seedr visiting shenandoah this in, well, 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 ea, 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 like. You can see theres not a lot of trees in the background. You see a few. The fields are prey bar 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 beusof 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 r me through. Hes another image 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 lling whain so they started purchasing land throughoutteo set u preserves. 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 d so its not really suitable 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, undaries 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 dead timber. So these are images, the fire dama. I know theyre difcult to tell because of the contrast. You can kind of see just some trunks back the. 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 were outfitted, organized into companies of approximately 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 thise n geing off of the train. 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 ty put under the direction 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. John c dix was assigned superintendent of the forestry projects. Mohican. So they arrived by train at 9 a. M. They didnt arrive to the mpte until ten and then they got work building a mess, tent supplyr quarters, hospital they did not 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 spot that does not flood. 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 mentiedthere was just an older, abdod 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 reedn hand tools. So it 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 drawn later on, based on what had been built. Although over the 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 i the sanitary areas. s difficultrom ere youre at probably, but if you closely the nail the men arinsay color and. Swank lumber company loudonville, ohio so if yore familiar with localisto and swank was a large hardware 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 thbarracks at mcgee can exist anymore. But this is at camp rabideau, minnesota, so itofes an idea 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 people. Now, this picture was likel before the mess hall was nished, but it shows 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