CCC Camp S-One Twenty-Six: Young Men in the Depression Forest

In March nineteen thirty-three, as the Great Depression ground millions of Americans into poverty, the federal government launched the Civilian Conservation Corps to put young men to work in the nation's forests and parks. Over nine years the program enrolled about three million youths nationwide, and Pennsylvania hosted nearly one hundred ninety-five thousand of them across one hundred fourteen camps. This site was home to Camp S-One Twenty-Six of the three hundred sixty-seventh CCC company.

The first members arrived on May thirtieth, nineteen thirty-three, and for the next three years hundreds of young men lived and worked here, planting trees, building trails, and restoring land before the camp closed in nineteen thirty-six. Many of those veterans moved on to a second camp near Montoursville. The CCC camps left a lasting imprint on Pennsylvania's state forests that hikers and drivers still move through today.