Historical Marker
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp at Trinity
Trinity, Trinity County · Texas
Erected 2017
Camps like Trinity's reported to a district office in Lufkin. The East Texas History project says the Lufkin District held seventeen camps by the end of 1933, and that Trinity, Groveton, Apple Springs, Coldspring and Oakhurst were among those placed under it at one time or another. The district offices sat in a rented educational building behind Hotel Angelina. Camps bought food from local ranchers, and each put about $10,000 a month into its community. The Handbook of Texas adds that enrollees were assigned to states at random, so Texas camps held young men from across the country.
What the plaque says
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp at Trinity A PUBLIC WORK RELIEF PROGRAM FROM 1933 TO 1942, THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS (CCC) PROVIDED JOBS FOR YOUNG, UNEMPLOYED OR UNMARRIED MEN DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION. PART OF THE NEW DEAL, THE CCC IMPLEMENTED A GENERAL NATURAL RESOURCE CONSERVATION PROGRAM IN EVERY STATE AND TERRITORY. SUPPLYING MEN WITH SHELTER, CLOTHING AND FOOD, CCC PAID EACH MAN THIRTY DOLLARS PER MONTH, TWENTY-FIVE OF WHICH HAD TO BE SENT BACK HOME TO AID THEIR FAMILIES. THE TRINITY CAMP WAS ONE OF 17 CCC CAMPS THAT COMPRISED THE LUFKIN DISTRICT, 8TH CORPS AREA. ON MAY 26, 1933, FIFTY MEN UNDER THE COMMAND OF CAPTAIN CHARLES H. BRAMMEL ARRIVED IN TRINITY AND NAMED THE CAMP COMPANY 839, P-59-T. THE COMPANY MOVED TO ITS PERMANENT LOCATION AT THIS SITE ON JUNE 8, 1933. THE CAMP SUPERINTENDENCE WAS CAPABLY HANDLED BY MAJOR CHARLES C. "PAPPY" DUFF AND W. D. HARALSON. DR. H.H. THORNTON DIRECTED THE MEDICAL AND SANITARY DEPARTMENTS. MEMBERS PARTICIPATED IN EROSION PREVENTION, CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE OF FIRE LANES, FIRE TOWERS, AND FIRE BREAK ROADS IN TRINITY, HOUSTON AND WALKER COUNTIES, FURNISHING FIRE PROTECTION TO OVER 320,000 ACRES. THE MEN BUILT BRIDGES, CULVERTS AND ROADS TO ACCESS REMOTE PARTS OF THE FOREST. IN THE LUFKIN DISTRICT, CCC MEN PLANTED MILLIONS OF SEEDLINGS, PLANTING 80-100 SEEDLINGS PER ACRE OF LOBLOLLY AND LONGLEAF PINE. THESE LARGE PLANTED SECTIONS BECAME THE AREA'S NATIONAL FORESTS. IN ADDITION, THE CCC ERECTED MILES OF TELEPHONE LINES THAT ESTABLISHED QUICK MEANS OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN NEARBY TOWNS. THE TRINITY CAMP ALSO TRAINED MEN AS TRACTOR GRADERS, PILE DRIVER OPERATORS, MECHANICS AND BLACKSMITHS, ENSURING LIFELONG VOCATIONAL SKILLS. PRINCIPAL BENEFITS FOR THE MEN INCLUDED IMPROVED PHYSICAL CONDITION, HEIGHTENED MORALE AND INCREASED EMPLOYABILITY. IMPLICITLY, THE CCC ALSO LED TO GREATER PUBLIC AWARENESS AND APPRECIATION FOR THE OUTDOORS AND THE NATION'S NATURAL RESOURCES. (2017)
Where it stands
30.95222, -95.35783 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Texas Prison Museum — 20 miA Huntsville museum on the history of the Texas prison system, where the electric chair Old Sparky, used for 361 executions from 1924 to 1964, is shown beside the rodeo and the escapes.
- Sam Houston Memorial Museum — 20 miA 15-acre Huntsville campus with Sam Houston's Woodland Home and the Steamboat House where he died in 1863, a museum, an education center gallery and free grounds open dawn to dusk.
- Huntsville State Park — 25 miA Walker County pine-forest park on Lake Raven, built from 1937 by a Civilian Conservation Corps company of African American veterans, with 21 miles of trails and 160 campsites.