Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Alcester

The bronze names two agencies because the work outlived the first. The Soil Erosion Service was formed in the Interior Department on September 13, 1933, with Hugh Hammond Bennett, a soil scientist in the Agriculture Department since 1903, as its chief. It moved to Agriculture on March 23, 1935, and the act of April 27, 1935 made it the Soil Conservation Service, whose initials the camp carried as SCS-3. Bennett led the service until he retired in 1952. Since October 1994 the agency has been the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

What the plaque says

Civilian Conservation Corps Camp Camp SCS-3 (DPE-211 in 1934): located in city park of NE Alcester. Companies: 2746--8/3-10/1/34 & 6/27/35-8/14/41; 4725V--8/15/41-5/27/42. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a federal work-relief program during the Great Depression. From 1933 to 1942, the CCC provided work for 31,097 jobless men in South Dakota--about 22,000 enrollees (single men aged 17-25), about 1,700 veterans, 4,554 American Indians and 2,834 supervisors. The U.S. Army provided 200-man camps, food, clothing, medical care and pay, and educational, recreational and religious programs. The Office of Indian Affairs provided similar services for units on Indian reservations. Work was done on private land under the Soil Erosion Service and Soil Conservation Service. Enrollees in Company 2746 and WWI veterans in Company 4725V demonstrated soil and water conservation through terraces, pasture furrows, gully controls and contour farming to reduce run-off and erosion. They planted shelterbelts and used strip farming and rough tillage to reduce wind erosion, and built stock dams to conserve water and improve grazing utilization. In 1937, the men planted 7,050 trees in Union County State Park and established a tree nursery at Vermillion. Tours showing results aided in the organization of conservation districts in Clay, Union, Bon Homme and Lincoln Counties. Erected in 1990 by CCC Alumni, the South Dakota State Historical Society, the State Department of Transportation and the Soil Conservation Service.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spirit Mound Historic Prairie — 20 mi
  A lone hill north of Vermillion that Lewis and Clark walked to on a scorching day in 1804, now one of the few places left where you can stand exactly where they stood.
• National Music Museum — 23 mi
  One of the great collections of musical instruments in the world, on a college campus in a prairie town, built around a band teacher's thousands of horns, fiddles and curiosities.

More markers nearby

• Archie M. Gubbrud — steps away
• William J. Bulow — 8.3 mi
• Southeast South Dakota Experiment Farm — 14 mi
• Giants in the Earth Country — 18 mi