“C” is for Civilian Conservation Corps

“C” is for Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was a New Deal federal initiative. In South Carolina the CCC worked with state and federal agencies, especially the National Park Service and the US Forest Service, to develop seventeen state parks, several fish hatcheries, and National Forest recreation areas. The CCC's most important legacy was the role it played in the transformation of South Carolina's rural landscape. By the 1930s intensive cotton farming and logging had left much of the state's land devastated by deforestation, fires, gullies, and sheet erosion.  The CCC began the process of land restoration by building hundreds of miles of terraces and planting more than fifty-six million tree seedlings. South Carolina’s extensive forests of today can be traced back to the pioneering conservation efforts and the visionary planning of the Civilian Conservation Corps.