Catoctin Mountain Park Historic Resource Study

Construction and Labor at Catoctin, Part I

While land acquisition remained an entangled mess, Williams pressed ahead with his plans to begin construction of the park. Having secured enough land through lease agreements, Williams began interviewing prospective workers for the project. Since the primary goal of the project, along with providing urban dwellers with recreation, and addressing the problem of submarginal farms, was to furnish locals with work, most workers were to be taken from relief rolls. The newly inaugurated Works Progress Administration (WPA), part of the Emergency Relief Act of 1935, was to finance the Catoctin jobs. [91]

While offering those on relief the dignity of a job rather than just a handout, the WPA had its problems--in particular, bureaucratic confusion. Roosevelt chose Harry Hopkins over the more exacting Interior Secretary Harold Ickes to head the WPA. Hopkins' willingness to spend and belief in getting money to the needy as quickly as possible clearly appealed to the President. As Hopkins explained the worker "must be the first and last digit in all government accounting." [92] But the WPA's efforts immediately to employ millions--even before an organized structure or bureaucracy could be developed--caused problems. Critics complained of idle workers assigned to useless projects. Hopkins' insistence that the bulk of all WPA grants be spent on labor also ruffled feathers. Maryland WPA chief John Mackall, complaining that projects were not of "lasting value," actually resigned his post in 1935. [93] By the summer of 1935, an Associated Press reporter wrote of the WPA, this "summer finds the whole program lagging with key men at loggerheads and officials out in the states plainly bewildered." [94]

Williams had arrived in the Catoctin area confident that he easily could raise the needed labor from the "approximately 300 families on relief in and immediately adjacent to the area." [95] But, perhaps because of a mild recovery in the region, by November, 1935, Williams reported that there were "less than 100 men on federal relief within a radius of 15 miles of the project." [96] In need of several hundred laborers, the NPS turned to the idea of establishing a worker camp on the project grounds for transients to be employed on site. Plans went ahead for the construction of a camp on tract 91 capable of housing up to 200 men (see Map 5). [97] The camp was to be administered by the WPA Transient Bureau. [98] The preliminary project proposal for the Catoctin RDA included mention of the "work camp," and the Resettlement Administration established work hours and pay scales for both Catoctin's resident and nonresident workers. In order to "work off part of the cost of maintaining them," workers housed in camps would labor a 35-hour week, while nonresident workers were to work 30 hours. The cost of housing transients also was to be covered by an $8 to $12 dollar monthly deduction. [99]

For whatever reason, perhaps concerns about already-strained relations with locals, the transient camp never was built. Instead, project supervisors hired local workers off relief rolls and transported--sometimes at great distance--supplemental workers. This also caused some headaches when workers from Woodsboro, Maryland, complained that their transportation consisted of riding in the rear of subfreezing unheated trucks back and forth forty miles (see Appendix 14). [100] Also helping to ease the labor problem, the NPS managed to obtain "percentage exemptions" allowances that permitted the hiring of some non-relief roll workers, often workers with necessary special skills. [101] Resettlement Administration officials, in fact, critiqued Williams' original development plan for its over reliance on unskilled labor. [102]

On January 2, 1936, work began with fifty-five men cleaning up the general area in preparation for fire prevention work. Within a week, the WPA transferred twenty men from its fish hatchery project in Lewistown to join in work at Catoctin. [103] By spring, over 300 men were hard at work. [104] Alongside construction, destruction was central to development. Miles of old roads and fences (made of stones wrapped in wire) had to be obliterated. [105] Likewise thousands of blighted chestnuts required removal. Also there was the destruction of the farm buildings that dotted the area (although some, due to acquisition delays, had to be left standing temporarily). Salvageable items such as hinges, ironware, doors, and glassware went to the blacksmith or craft shops (once workers constructed these shops) for rehabilitation and use in construction. On-site saw mills also created needed lumber from the many trees felled to make way for construction (see Appendix 15). [106] WPA workers--some of whom were descendants of the original furnace workers--began a cleanup and excavation of the furnace site. The regional historian, however, fearing damage to the site, insisted that work be halted. [107]

With areas cleared, construction could begin. In the first year, attention focused on building support structures such as a central garage unit, a blacksmith shop, and a temporary administration building, containing office space for the project manager, clerical personnel, engineers, and draftsmen. Workers also graded land and built truck trails to allow vehicles access to construction sites. Most important, construction began on picnic areas and the first public camp, to be known as Misty Mount (see Map 5). Along with everything else, immense bureaucratic challenges persisted for Williams. Each individual project had to be numbered and described along with estimates of material costs and labor. Then the project manager had to submit the proposals to the NPS for approval. Individual Job Plan No. 203-A, for instance, involved the construction of a "vehicular bridge" over Hunting Creek. Williams set bridge labor costs at $79, and materials at $48.50. He also included a justification, noting it necessity to "provide access to the parking area." [108]

Delays in obtaining approval for projects and allocation of money also provided headaches for Williams. Eight months into construction, holdups in procuring approval for construction of a park road forced the project manager to lay off around 200 men. By the end of the month, the necessary permissions arrived, and Williams could hire the workers back. [109] Still, the lack of security kept life difficult for those working at Catoctin.

The Ordeal of Acquisition, Part II

Despite problems and layoffs, those in need both on Catoctin Mountain and in the surrounding environs clearly benefited from WPA employment. [110] But deep resentment of the projected lingered among some locals. At seven o'clock on Saturday morning, May 2, 1936, a fire of suspicious origins broke out on tract 307 of the project grounds. Shortly after, a second fire ignited on tract 116. Sometime later, the Foxville fire tower reported a third fire on tract 328. Although WPA workers had the day off, as word of the fires spread, they rushed to the project site to join in fighting the blazes--no doubt fearing the destruction could imperil their livelihoods. When high winds from the west threatened to fan flames, Mike Williams called for help from the CCC camps at Boonsboro and the Frederick City watershed. By three-thirty that afternoon, a combined force of 250 men finally tamed the conflagration. But questions smoldered. It appeared that someone purposely had set the fires, and officials suspected "disgruntled mountaineers." A $25 reward was offered for information leading to arrests. [111]

The State Forestry Department also hired the private investigation firm of Lancaster and Daugherty to look into the matter. Information gathered pointed to a group of mountain-area teenagers. Frederick county police aggressively questioned each implicated young man in succession at police headquarters. Despite sharp interrogation, each defiantly denied any role in setting the fires. Then police questioned the father of one of the youths, who actually had worked for the State Forestry Department. Like the boys, the man denied any knowledge of the origins of the fires. But he made his sympathies clear:

"the Government--if you call it that--I don't; I call it Russia--they came along here and wanted to get all of our land and they fooled some people and some people signed a waiver to let them have it and they have not paid them one cent; but, they took it and they have cut it up as soon as they got it. Now, they aren't going to pay for it; they have it under lease for five years. They came after and wanted me to agree to sell my farms and they suggested if we could not agree that they would appoint two men and I appoint one, and what they would say would be final in reference to the price and I told them no. I have been raised on this mountain and I am one of the first Fire Wardens and I am still one of them. . . . There will always be hungry people in these mountains, but there never were any hungry ones there before relief, and who is going to pay for it I don't know." [112]

Despite his harsh tone, the "mountaineer" had some valid points. Planners had not always been diplomatic or respectful of the residents of the mountain. For instance, in a widely quoted public statement the previous fall, L.C. Gray, a key administrator in the Resettlement Administration, said of the Catoctin land: "Today the land is of almost no value to anyone, most of it lying idle and unproductive." [113] Such comments could not have sat well with those who had struggled to make a living from the mountain. Likewise the mountaineer, quite correctly, asserted that most owners remained uncompensated--and yet construction was underway. In addition, circumstances had forced the government to resort to condemnation in a number of cases in which titles were too convoluted to allow for normal transfer. Even when every effort was made to put the condemnations in proper context, they inevitably caused suspicions in an era in which one's life earnings suddenly could disappear. To many Americans, especially during the Depression, bigness--whether big banks, big business, or big government—was suspect.

While the May 1936 fires were the last such open manifestation of resistance, the entire process of acquisition remained--as one local recalled--"a mess for a while." [114] The acquisition quagmire even became a political issue. In an attack on the New Deal-friendly Western Maryland congressman, David Lewis, The Cumberland Daily News, assailed the "excuse" issued by "the New Dealers" that trouble clearing up land titles was preventing the exercising of options. "The New Dealers," claimed the editorial, "are fooling the owners of the land." [115] In fact, procedural obstacles were slowing down the process and frustrating everyone. But some problems lay beyond the control of the project supervisors. For instance, at one point in the summer of 1936, the project's title abstracter, hired to research land deeds, disappeared for a month, supposedly sick. Infuriated officials later found him doing outside work in Allentown, Pennsylvania. [116]

By late 1937, the laborious acquisition process was slowing down construction. Williams postponed the planned construction of a water system for a new camp because contracts had yet to be closed on five important tracts of land. Having only managed to pay for only 65 of the 123 properties optioned, park officials complained that the office of the special attorney was holding up checks, and "meanwhile, of course, a tremendous amount of ill will has been created around the Project Area by these dilatory tactics." [117]

Perhaps also of concern to the local population, the Thurmont Bank, which held several mortgages on land in the project area, was eager to get the loans liquidated and worked with park acquisition officers to secure land. Because option prices were often higher than original amounts owed, mortgaged land owners still could end up making money, but the specter of the bank working with the government could not help but make locals uneasy. [118] When project planners briefly toyed with the idea of attempting again to acquire land south of Foxville, they were "confidentially informed . . . that foreclosure proceedings by the [resistant] lien holders would be instituted and title taken by persons more friendly toward the program." [119]

The ordeal of acquisition lasted well into 1939, when the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland heard the case of the U.S. verses 810.3 acres of land situate in Frederick County, the State of Maryland, and Reuben A. McAfee, et al. Ultimately, the court ruled in favor of the condemnation of over forty tracts of land with titles too convoluted to sort out any other way. [120] The entire elongated process resulted in much lasting bad feeling. Even today, in the area around the park, popular opinion holds that the government, sometimes with the cooperation of banks, pressed people off their land. [121] But there is no evidence that the government acted with anything other than good--although occasionally sloppy executed--intentions. Cultural misunderstandings probably were inevitable. The general confusion and haste of New Deal programs only added to the potential for problems. In the end, it also must be remembered that acquisition officers, under the best of circumstances, have a very difficult job--that of persuading people to give up their homes. Nor was the Catoctin project unusual in experiencing problems. Other parks had even greater problems. Even in urban settings, such as Baltimore, planners of the Edgar Allan Poe housing project in the late 1930s found residents clinging to their dilapidated houses, and complaining of authorities who "ask us to sell at a quarter their value the homes we cherish." [122]

Construction and Labor at Catoctin, Part II

Despite the continuing acquisition problems, construction moved ahead. By early 1937, workers completed the first camp. An inspector declared the buildings to be "of the better class in RDP work. The materials, (chestnut logs and native stone) were particularly well chosen and the designs, following the local precedent, have been well executed." On June 25, 1937, ready to show off their new camp, project officials held an open house, dubbed "Thurmont Day," a sunup to sundown affair, in which visitors could walk through the newly completed Misty Mount grounds. [123]

Planning next shifted to the second camp, to be known as Greentop, a special needs site for disabled children (see Map 5). [124] The impetus for the camp came from the Baltimore-based Maryland League for Crippled Children (MLCC), an organization founded in 1927, as an outgrowth of the Council of Jewish Women. Aggressive fund-raisers, the organization managed to forge a personal relationship with President Roosevelt, who, of course, had every reason to be sympathetic to the group's cause. [125] The league also established an effective working relationship with the park service and contributed financially to the special equipment needed at the camp. [126] Construction began in 1937 and continued into the winter, during which work moved inside the cabins to avoid freezing weather." [127]

In the summer of 1938, 120 handicapped children enjoyed the new camp's specialized facilities. Meanwhile, nearly 300 workers began construction of the third camp, to be known as Hi-Catoctin (see Map 5). [128] As in every other phase of the project, bureaucratic entanglements often retarded progress. Federal dictates passed in 1937 required that an increased percentage of WPA laborers come from the relief rolls, hampering the hiring of much needed skilled workers. [129] The next year, as construction on the third camp moved ahead, Williams, in order to prevent "a number of men being thrown out of work," used a "nonowner operated" 2.5 ton truck to complete a job for which his supervisors had mandated a 1.5 ton truck at a lower cost. In what he later admitted was an "irregular payroll practice," Williams papered over the detail in his records. When discovered, the project supervisor was reprimanded, but investigators also noted that his "record of accomplishment on the project is excellent," and that his efforts to fabricate on site many of the materials needed in construction had eliminated the "necessity of many outside purchases." [130]

With the completion of Camp Hi-Catoctin later that year, planners turned to other projects (see Appendix 16). Envisioning a Lake Placid in the Catoctins, a Baltimore-based advisory committee for the Catoctin project recommended the development for winter sports of an area of the mountain known as "cold valley." But several "blue-bird" winters discouraged such plans. [131] Thoughts of refurbishing the Mt. Lent house, site of the Bessie Darling tragedy, as an overnight shelter for hikers, surfaced but were later shelved. [132] Planners also foresaw a "Wayside Day Use Area" at Catoctin Manor, which, unlike Mount Lent and "cold valley," later was completed with CCC labor. [133]

Use and Segregation

Maryland League for Crippled Children had been the first organized group to use Catoctin's facilities in 1937. The next year it moved into its own custom-designed camp at Greentop. The league's staff and administration immensely impressed park service inspectors, who complimented the "exceptionally cordial, cooperative spirit and interest evident by campers, staff, and help. An excellent job is being done by this organization." [134] Meanwhile, other groups took over Camp Misty Mount, including the girl and boy scouts, and such short-term users as the Recreational Association of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, who paid $5.25 for use of the camp, May 14-15, 1937 (see Appendix 17). [135]

While the project was finding enthusiastic users, one group appeared shut out--African Americans. While President Roosevelt was not a great supporter of civil rights, others in his administration, in particular his wife and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, were eager to open New Deal programs and benefits to all. [136] Ickes appointed W.J. Trent as his "advisor on Negro affairs." From his office, Trent pressed the Park Service to consider African-American needs. With the New Deal-funded construction of over forty RDAs, Trent and others argued that some, perhaps including the Catoctin project, should include camps for African-Americans. A memorandum prepared by the Park Service on September 20, 1936 identified recreational and wayside projects "with the possibility for the development of Negro camping facilities." Surveyors designated most as either "all white" or "all colored." Catoctin, however, earned the designation as "possible for both white and colored" camping (See Appendix 18). [137]

In 1939, several prominent African-Americans from Baltimore began a campaign aimed at the construction of a crippled children's camp for African-Americans to be situated "adjacent to the camp now used . . . for white children." Officials from the Henry Watson Children's Aid Society, the Rose Ward Circle, and Willard W. Allen, a prominent African-American businessman from Baltimore, all joined the campaign. [138] But Park Service officials politely put off the lobbyists. They cited a lack of public works money for such an endeavor and suggested that "needs could be furnished in some area nearer to this population group, probably along the Bay or Potomac Shore in Southern Maryland." [139]

The "possibility" of African-American use again resurfaced in the 1940 master plan for the Catoctin RDA, which included a recommendation for "a comprehensive development outline for Negro use." [140] In the end, despite the efforts of an increasingly organized African-American community, both the labor force constructing the project and the early groups using the Catoctin park remained exclusively white.