The Civilian Conservation Corps at Abilene State Park

Long before the park, Elm Creek here was a favored camping ground for the Tonkawas and Comanches, who hunted buffalo on their annual migrations through Buffalo Gap, five miles northeast. In 1921 the city of Abilene dammed the creek for its water supply, and in 1933 it gave the land below the dam to the State Parks Board, the gift that brought the veterans' company. Shelters and campgrounds came in the 1960s and 1970s. The 621.4-acre park adjoins Lake Abilene, and the Handbook of Texas notes that part of the official Texas longhorn herd is kept there.

What the plaque says

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933 to provide jobs on public lands for unemployed workers, specifically young men and World War I veterans. Quick to recognize the benefits of this program, the City of Abilene donated land in 1933 for the CCC's use in building a state park near Lake Abilene. Company No. 1823, one of the companies comprised entirely of World War I veterans, was assigned to the Taylor County site. Using the design of Abilene architect David Castle, the men constructed a refectory in addition to roads, picnic areas and a swimming pool with native sandstone as the primary building material. Abilene mayor C.L. Johnson declared it "a beautiful spot of great recreational benefit" at the opening ceremony on May 10, 1934, during which State Parks Board chairman D. E. Colp formally dedicated the new state park. In 1935 a reactivated CCC Company No. 1823, comprised of African American veterans, returned to Abilene State Park for additional work. They built culverts, a water tower and latrines, and undertook some road and stonework repairs before moving on to Kerrville. The work of the Civilian Conservation Corps is still visible at Abilene State Park, one of more than 50 public parks in Texas that benefited from labor and craftsmanship of the men of the CCC. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Abilene State Park — 0.8 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 4.5 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Frontier Texas! — 17 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 20 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.

More markers nearby

• Buffalo Gap College — 4.3 mi
• Town of Buffalo Gap — 4.3 mi
• The Ernie Wilson Museum — 4.5 mi
• In Vicinity of Coronado's Camp — 6.2 mi