Today there are Wildernesses and Primitive Areas in the Forests where vehicles are prohibited, but otherwise Rangers can cover their patrols with pick-ups and 4-wheel drive vehicles. But the old-time Ranger still loves his horse as the way to get around the country. As Ranger Henry Woodrow of the McKenna Park District once said, "I expect to keep riding them as long as I am able to-up until I am a hundred years old anyway."

Stanley Wilson, a technically trained forester, graduate of the Yale Forestry School, spent his entire career in Ranger and Supervisor positions, and he summed up the feelings of a lot of old time Rangers about working their Districts on horseback:

"As a retiree who knows nothing about the facts, I just want to make an observation or two. In my day, of course, we rode horseback. We were encouraged to make trips where we had nothing in particular to do except to see the country. I never made a trip of that sort but what I came up with something I ought to know. I remember the trip I made on the Catalinas. I just went into an area to see the country. I found goats in trespass. I didn't know there were any goats in the Catalinas. I found a fence that had been built. Basically we were doing this to get acquainted with our District. We did know the nooks and corners, but as I say, we almost always found some good reason for being in that place that we couldn't think of. Now, of course, there are roads everywhere. We have roads to our lookout; we have roads everywhere . . . but I can't help thinking that men don't know their Districts as well, traveling in a car."

Wilson said that when he moved to Phoenix as a retiree, he ran into Hugh Cassidy at Springerville.

"Stan," Cassidy said, "when you move out here and get settled, come on up and take a week's trip with me."

"Well," Wilson said, "I'd love to, Hugh. I haven't forked a horse in 15 years.

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"Who said anything about a horse?” Hugh asked. Hugh asked. "We're going in a car.”

you."

"Go to the devil," Wilson said. "I don't want to ride with

And he added, he never went.

CHAPTER XIV
CCC Days

Edward G. Miller was Supervisor of the Coconino National Forest in 1933 when the telegram arrived at his Flagstaff office advising him that some 500 to 600 CCC enrollees would be assigned to the Flagstaff area. Miller was advised to be prepared to take care of them.

Similar telegrams were being received by other Supervisors as the Federal government's emergency program to combat the Depression got underway. With about one-fourth of the population of the United States between 15 and 24 unemployed, and as many employed only part-time, the government was taking dramatic action to cope with the problem.

Chief of the Forest Service Robert Y. Stuart had estimated that 25,000 men would be put to work in the National Forests. Within a month he had been asked to increase the number to 250,000 as plans went ahead to enroll young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps. At its peak the number of camps increased to 1,500 and an enrollment of half a million.

In the Regional Office in Albuquerque, Hugh Calkins was Chief of the Operations Division and Stanley Wilson was assistant.

"I was rather amazed at how wonderfully Hugh Calkins found camp sites and places and work for all of the camps," Wilson recalled. "My own part of it was handling personnel."

The establishment of the CCC camps put a great drain on available supervisory forest personnel and new technical foresters had to be obtained and obtained quickly. Prior to that time when technical foresters were needed, it was customary to send word to the forestry schools for the names of people and resumes of their qualifications.

"We'd peruse the lists and look wise and pick the people we wanted," Wilson recounted. "Of course it didn't do us any real good.'

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Because he was not happy with the system, Wilson—shortly before the start of the CCC program made arrangements with 10 forestry schools for selection of candidates for employment.

"I don't want your histories of these men," Wilson told them.

"They mean nothing to me. What I want to do is to be able to call upon you for so many men to be either camp superintendents or camp foremen—and here are the qualifications. I don't want their qualifications, because I want you to be willing to stand behind them.

"So when the CCC program broke, I sent for 80 men from the 10 forestry schools. Then there was a delay in the program, and for a day or two we didn't know whether we were going ahead or not. I was afraid to take the men, yet on the other hand if I cancelled the order for them I would be out of luck. So we sat tight, and fortunately the order came to go ahead. We got 80 men, and the heads of the forest schools did such a good job that actually we had no lemons in those 80 men. I think we had unquestionably the best group of technical foresters any Region got."

The various Forests were setting up camps to handle the influx of enrollees.

Edward Miller reported from Flagstaff that with Major P. L. Thomas from the regular Army, his lieutenant and a sergeant, "we looked over several possible camp sites and agreed to put one camp north of the city reservoir, out from Flagstaff where water could be obtained from the city power plant; one camp at Double Springs on the west side of Mormon Lake; one camp at Woods Springs on the Munds Park District."

"By the time the enrollees showed up," Miller said, “our boys had installed water mains, storage tanks, had made some clearings and were ready for the CCC camps to be established.

"We had some of the technical foremen, forestry graduates, start on timber-stand improvement work as soon as possible. We started some fencing work, some erosion control, like building little check-dams in some of the arroyos. Looking back, it seems to me that those spring developments were mighty important from the viewpoint of forest grazing permittees.

"We also started in on some recreation improvements. Recreation was just coming into its own on the Coconino. Oak Creek was a favorite spot, also Mormon Lake, and Lake Mary."

The level of Lake Mary was low in 1933, and a lot of water was being lost from holes and fractures along an old fault line in the limestone bottom of the lake. It was decided to try to plug the holes. The State Game Department provided truck loads of cans to save the fish before the repair program got under way. CCC boys seined for days getting out bass, crappie, and ring perch, which were then transported to other waters. Then crews of CCC boys with trucks and other equipment began the task of repairing the leaks in the lake bottom.

"I remember one crack that must have been 300 feet long and several feet wide."Miller said. "One of the big holes that had been filled with brush and clay in 1905 and '06 had opened up. We decided we would put in layers of limestone rock, carefully laid, then layers of clay. We found a sizeable clay bank, from which dump trucks were loaded by hand. Weeks were spent on this work. The clay was compacted as it was put in.

"By the time the camp was to move to winter quarters, the boys had filled all holes and all cracks that were visible in Lake Mary. That was one job where the CCC boys really accomplished something that meant a lot to a lot of people. Lake Mary is a favorite camp ground, a favorite fishing lake for a lot of people from Phoenix and other points in the desert as well as local people.

"Other recreation work included fireplaces, tables, water lines. One water line in Oak Creek was extended from the Upper Spring in Oak Creek Canyon down to Pine Flats campground. Other springs farther down were also developed.

"Incidentally, it is interesting to think back and realize the change in thinking. The most desirable places, like Pine Flats and Oak Creek Canyon, were laid out by Aldo Leopold and his helpers as summer home sites back in 1917, '18, or thereabouts. Fortunately, most of those summer home sites were never rented. But now I understand that people come from California, and other distant States, for a few days' camping in that beautiful canyon.

"Sedona was winter quarters for one CCC camp; another was placed on the upper part of the Beaver Creek Ranger Station site, and another on the upper end of the Clear Creek Ranger Station site. Those camps were located so that considerable recreation and range improvement work could be accomplished. Thousands of little check-dams were put in, camp sets were constructed up in Navajo Creek Canyon, stream bottoms were fenced, checkdams put in.

"Unfortunately, we had no guides for them and the engineer who gave advice had to go by rule of thumb. I just do not know how many of those checkdams were destined to last until the present time. We fenced some of the stream bottoms as we figured that by reseeding those stream bottoms and keeping cattle out, Old Mother Nature would revegetate and that possibly more permanent good would result than would be accomplished there by the construction of checkdams.

"A person would have to admit that a lot of those kids that came out as CCC workers were pretty poor help for a few months. Very few of them knew how to use tools. We didn't get too