The CCC Museum in Highland Hammock State Park in Sebring, Florida was built in the 1930’s. Mount Gilead’s State Park is on their map as one of 800 State Parks developed by the CCC.
Photos by Alberta Stojkovic|Aim Media Midwest
A highlight of our two week travels in Florida this year was our visit to Highland Hammock State Park near Sebring, Florida.
We enjoyed a tram ride through some of the 9,000 acres of the park where we saw alligators, egrets and herons among the bald cypress and palmettos.
As well as being one of the first state parks in Florida, Highland Hammock is also the home of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Museum.
The park was developed by CCC workers in 1934-1935 as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign to get unemployed men working during the Great Depression. More than 3 million young men were enrolled in the CCC.
The CCC developed over 800 state parks during the 1930’s. A large map in the museum identified Mount Gilead as a place where the CCC worked on a park.
Stan Sipe found articles in the Morrow County Sentinel where plans were made for Mount Gilead’s State Lakes Park work by the CCC. They worked on the dam, and planted trees, along with working on park roads and building picnic tables.
Several Sentinel articles list Morrow County young men who were enrolled in the CCC. Morrow County Historical Society President Mike Wilson’s grandfather Johnie Robinson worked with the CCC in Tiptonville, Tennessee.
Wilson said CCC workers received $30 a month in pay. $25 dollars of that was sent home to their family and they kept $5 per month as well as receiving their meals and place to stay at camp.
The park museum had special interest for me as well because my Uncle Henry Nestor worked with the CCC. He was one of the 225,000 World War I veterans who had the opportunity to work with the CCC.
Besides working on state parks and planting trees for reforestation, the CCC men built bridges and dug ditches for farmers. One especially interesting article in the February 17, 1938 Sentinel has the headline, “Farmers ask for continuance of CCC here.”
There was concern from local farmers that several CCC camps in Delaware County and surrounding counties were closing and they would no longer be able to get the free labor for ditch digging provided by CCC workers.
“Those interested are writing their congressmen and senators, the director of the CCC and the secretary of agriculture in their efforts to have the camps retained for drainage work,” the Morrow County Sentinel article reported.
The CCC numbers and facts tell the story of the importance of the work accomplished in the 9 years of the existence of the CCC from 1933-1942. A few of those facts are: In addition to the 800 state parks they developed, the CCC built 46,854 bridges, built 4,622 fish rearing ponds, restored 3,980 historic structures, installed 5,000 miles of water supply lines, planted 45 million trees and shrubs for landscaping, planted over 3.5 billion trees for forests, fought forest fires, built fences, museums, lodges and taught more than 40,000 illiterate enrollees to read and write through educational programs offered by the CCC.
