The Civilian Conservation Corps came to Seiad, Calif., in 1935. The typical enlistee was 18-years old, unemployed, hungry and with only an eighth-grade education.
One enlistee, Chuck Edwards, credited the CCC, as the corps was better known, with providing opportunities for young men. In his memoirs, he said, “The 1933 Depression took away my father’s means of supporting his family…I reasoned that if I could be away from home it would ease the cost of my subsistence and appetite.”
The volunteers mainly worked with the U.S. Forest Service on new road construction and other projects. They learned to be truck drivers, timber fallers, tractor and bulldozer operators, day laborers, cooks, and more. Everyone quickly learned to be a mechanic. Edwards said “half a dozen wrenches was adequate for daily maintenance.”
The unpaved roads through the region, especially along the Klamath River, consisted of rock and gravel.
In 1935, trucks carried only one spare tire, and air was supplied by a manually-operated pump. No one traveled without a pump or patch kit, car jack, and tire iron. Some tires, according to Edwards, were good for 6,000 miles and 20 tube patches.
Source: Edwards, Chuck. "On Becoming a CCC Boy." Siskiyou Pioneer Vol 8 2002: 63-66. Print.
