Civilian Conservation Corps at Linden

Company 1814 was organized on June 6, 1933, at Fort Logan, Colorado, and three days later 167 enrollees from Oklahoma joined it, according to Sam L. Henderson's history of the Linden camp in the Citizens Journal's 1939 anniversary issue. On December 1, 1933, it moved to Groveton, Texas, as a forestry camp, and in April 1934 to Austin to maintain Zilker Park. It reached Linden on June 4, 1937, and was transferred to Arizona on October 4, 1939. The Living New Deal lists the Linden camp as active from 1937 to 1939.

What the plaque says

Civilian Conservation Corps at Linden As part of the New Deal's efforts to offer unemployed workers jobs on public projects, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the United States Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in March 1933. Three months later, Company 1814 was organized in Fort Logan, Colorado, to serve in reforestation and other conservation efforts. After transfers to Groveton and Austin, Texas, the company was transferred to Linden on June 4, 1937. The CCC enrollees in Linden established their camp here on the nearby hillside. Working closely with the U.S. Forest Service, they built 35 miles of roads with 25 bridges, ran 147 miles of telephone line, and spent many hours fighting and suppressing forest fires in the area. While living here, the men also landscaped their campground with flowers and grass. In April 1939, they held an open house for the community during which hundreds of residents came out to learn of the accomplishments of the local CCC camp. On October 4, 1939, company 1814 was transferred to Arizona, and the camp in Linden was abandoned. Some physical evidence of their headquarters, including rock walls, cabin foundations and equipment, remains at the site. Their legacy stands as an important part of the heritage of Cass County and the East Texas forest industry. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Atlanta State Park — 17 mi
  A shoreline park on Wright Patman Lake, leased from the Army in 1954, where Caddo ancestors farmed the Sulphur River and wagon traces such as the Bobo Ferry trace still cross the woods.
• Excelsior House Hotel — 18 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 18 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.
• Daingerfield State Park — 18 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.

More markers nearby

• Cass County — 6.8 mi
• Whittaker Memorial Cemetery — 9.9 mi
• Floyds' Hill Church - Cemetery — 10.0 mi
• John Robin Heard Cemetery — 11 mi