A couple of little instances in the summer and fall of 1933 helped to take some of the dreariness out of the workday and put a little spice and pleasure in its place. It was early in August, I believe, when a message came down to me via the secretary's office and John Coffman that President Roosevelt wanted to see me, but it gave no indication of what he wanted to see me about. Naturally I was somewhat apprehensive. I went to the White House at the appointed time and was ushered into the president's office. I was relieved to see him relaxed and smiling.

He asked about the CCC program in general, and then said, "By the way, I have a complaint from a congressman about a CCC work program in a state park in which you turned down the building of a road."

I said, "Yes, Mr. President, we turned it down, and did so in other state parks also." And I added, "At one of our meetings over here we were told that you would be quite insistent about not taking on big construction jobs like roads in the state park areas and even in the national parks and that the work of the CCC was supposed to be done with the least amount of equipment."

He smiled and said, "Well, that perhaps is so, but you can build fire trails, can't you?"

I replied, "Yes, sir, that's on the approved list of work."

He then looked at me and still smiling said, "I didn't say you couldn't build two fire lanes right next to one another did I?" And I said, "No, sir." We changed the subject and the road was built—as it should have been, because it was on the approved plan and really was needed. Our discussion opened the gate for more such projects, and from then on we did a complete job of park development.

In November, 1934, I made a swing through Georgia and Alabama with Fred Morrell of the Forest Service on an inspection trip with Director Fechner. We had received an invitation to the dedication of a state park in Georgia that was said to include an old Spanish fort. The park was being developed by a CCC camp, and the plantation owner who donated the land invited us to stay at his home. We accepted his offer and arrived there the day before the dedication. That evening our host asked whether anyone wanted to go deer hunting. He had thousands of acres that he kept as a game preserve used for hunting. Among the guests was Governor Eugene Talmadge, of Georgia, who said he would like to go. Since nobody else responded I spoke up saying I would like to join the governor. A guide took the governor, myself and the governor's military aide in a car to a point a mile or so from the house where we started walking through the woods.

Director Fechner and his advisory council after lunching with the camp commander at a CCC camp.

It wasn't long before we spotted a deer. Out of courtesy to the governor I held my gun in readiness but did not fire. The military aide handed the governor his gun; he fired and missed, and the deer ran off. We continued walking, and it wasn't long before we spotted a second deer. Again the gun was given to the governor; he fired and missed. We started off again, and before long we spotted a third deer. It occurred to me that perhaps I had extended all the courtesy required. The shot didn't look too hard, and so I raised my gun and fired. I hit the deer in a vital spot, and it dropped dead instantly. We carried it back to the car and took it to the house. This being my first deer hunt, Bob Fechner insisted on dashing a bit of the blood on both of my cheeks, which I was told was customary in Georgia. My shot was not all luck, for I had earned a good rating on the rifle range at Saint John's Military Academy.

Piece of Governor Talmadge's shirttail.

When he heard that the governor had missed two shots, Bob insisted that the governor cut off part of his shirttail and autograph it for me. Governor Talmadge said he would do that and send it to me, and he did. It arrived on the day I was going to a dinner of the American Planning and Civic Association, at which Frederic A. Delano, the uncle of President Roosevelt, was presiding as chairman of the board. Knowing that the president and Governor Talmadge had had a disagreement, I pulled the shirttail out of my pocket and showed it to "Uncle Freddy." I asked him how much he thought the president would pay to have the governor's autographed shirttail, and I told him the story. He laughed and asked to borrow it to show to the president.

The dedication of the old Spanish fort took place the morning after the hunt. There were a lot of nice people there, including one lady, a bit beyond middle age, who came up to me and said, "Mr. Wirth, there's a rumor going around here that you went hunting and shot a deer yesterday. I can't believe it! Please tell me it's not true." I realized I was in for a lecture, but I told the lady yes, I had gone hunting for the first time in my life and had shot a deer. With that, she said, "Mr. Wirth, I just can hardly believe that. If it didn't come from you, I would certainly not believe it. How could you, with your park background and love for wildlife and nature, shoot that poor deer with those lovely brown eyes!" If I managed to say anything I don't remember what it was, but she surely made me feel a little uneasy.

The dedication went off fine, but several months later our historian was doing some research in connection with this "Spanish fort" and called on me in Washington to tell me that the building we had solemnly dedicated was not an old Spanish fort but an old sugar mill. We said nothing publicly about the downgrading, but we informed the state. Anyway, the CCC did develop a very nice state park there, and it has served the people well.

The growth and diversification of the national park system between 1933 and 1936 caused the director considerable concern about just how to manage the system. This expansion was summarized very well in Ronald F. Lee's publication of 1972, Family Tree of the National Park System, put out by the Eastern National Park and Monument Association. As this account shows, the Park Service had grown right out of its nest of about fifty areas mostly in the West. It was rapidly reaching maturity and had to be prepared to carry its full responsibilities. Referring to President Roosevelt's reorganization of 1933, Lee wrote:

The reorganization had three highly significant consequences: (1) it made the National Park Service the sole Federal agency responsible for all Federally owned public monuments and memorials; (2) it enlarged the National Park System idea to include at least four types of areas not clearly included in the System concept before 1933—National Memorials, like the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty; National Military Parks, like Gettysburg and Antietam with their adjoining National Cemeteries; National Capital Parks, a great urban park system as old as the nation itself and the first recreation area—George Washington Memorial Parkway; (3) the reorganization substantially increased and diversified the holdings in the System by adding 12 natural areas located in 9 western states and Alaska and 57 historical areas located in 17 predominantly eastern states and the District of Columbia. The number of historic areas in the System thus quadrupled. The System became far more truly national than ever before.

In 1916, when the Park Service was established, there were 37 areas in the national park system. Before the reorganization by President Roosevelt in 1933, the system had grown to 67 areas. By transferring a large number of eastern historic areas from the War Department and some additional natural and historic areas from the Forest Service, the executive order more than doubled the total. According to Lee's book, the national park system then consisted of 58 natural areas, 77 historic areas, 1 recreation area, and the park system of the nation's capital, which consisted of many recreation areas scattered among residential neighborhoods, the Mall, the White House grounds, and all federally owned public buildings in Washington (by 1936 these buildings were transferred to the Public Buildings Administration). As a result of investigation of proposed areas to be included in the national park system, by 1936 there were 4 additional natural areas, 9 nationally important historic areas, and 4 national recreation areas either established or in the process of being established as part of the national park system. So it can be said that the park system in 1936 consisted of 154 areas scattered throughout the United States, each with a superintendent reporting directly to the Washington office. Further, there were favorable reports in the office on 17 additional proposed areas and the national seashore studies were going full force.

Another development that had to be considered was the enactment of the 1935 Historic Sites Act, the basic legislation in support of the preservation of our historic heritage, which set forth duties and responsibilities for the National Park Service in the field of historic preservation. This act started a whole field of study and classification of historic sites, buildings, and objects. The act also created the Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments. At this point the service felt that cooperation with the states needed a much stronger basic authority than that for emergency work. Such authority was provided in the 1936 Park, Parkway and Recreational-Area Study Act, the main purpose of which was to help the states plan their park systems. Under that act we used funds from CCC allotments to assist forty-five of the forty-eight states in drafting comprehensive plans for their state park systems. The National Park Service was a cooperating agency only, and we reviewed and supervised the planning.

In 1935, Director Cammerer began to consider the feasibility of regionalizing the entire National Park Service. Coffman was getting more and more concerned about his forestry responsibilities, and he felt besides that the administration of two CCC programs by a single bureau—one for national parks and one for state parks—was not economical. It had not been the intent of Director Albright, when he assigned me the responsibility of the state parks CCC program, that it should be separated from the national park CCC program. But the whole thing had grown tremendously, and, although there was close coordination through Coffman as the man in charge, for all intents and purposes the two programs were separate.

By 1936, Coffman was devoting his entire time to forestry work in the national parks, the director had designated me as his acting alternate, and Coffman's national park CCC staff was turned over to me. Unless I made some changes I would in effect be running two CCC programs. I had to consolidate the national and state park programs, which was not going to be easy. As we started consolidating the CCC program, the regional inspectors started dropping by the national parks to carry out the same duties that they performed for the state parks—assisting in getting things that were needed, handling contacts in the corps areas, and the like. The superintendents didn't like it. A park superintendent is an important person in the National Park Service, a key man. He and his rangers are the troops out front, and he has a lot of responsibility and authority. The regional inspectors were doing no more than Coffman's men had been doing coming out of the Washington office, but they were not old-line Park Service men, and the whole idea went against the superintendents' grain a little bit. Finally, Director Cammerer called many of the key people from the field to Washington to discuss the problem of complete regionalization of the service.

Director Cammerer scheduled a conference of field people in the fall of 1936 to present a regionalization plan. The director was very busy and could not be with us constantly. At one meeting, on a Tuesday, he opened up the session and then departed. Because I had organized the CCC, on a regional basis he left me there to talk to the superintendents on the touchy subject. In the annals of the National Park Service that day became known as "bloody Tuesday." The superintendents did not want regionalization; they were adamant. I think they were prejudiced primarily because they were afraid it would interfere with the authority of the park superintendent; also they didn't want anybody between them and the director, least of all a lot of temporary people brought in for the CCC program. During the discussion, however, it was made clear to them that if the National Park Service became regionalized it would be only logical and natural for the director to appoint new regional directors from the permanent personnel who would be thoroughly informed on the principles and policies of the National Park System as a whole. I emphasized that the regional office setup would be oriented and adjusted to the basic requirements of the National Park System. I also pointed out that the superintendents would be in a much better position in justifying their financial requirements when dealing through somebody more familiar with the Washington office than when 150 superintendents were trying to get the special attention of one man, the director. Regionalization eventually became a fact.

A few weeks after the director's reorganization meeting, I went on another field trip with CCC Director Fechner and Fred Morrell of the Forest Service. I was glad to get out of Washington for a while, and I don't think that Bob Fechner ever forgot the visit we made to Big Bend State Park, in Texas. I know Morrell and I never did. On this occasion we also visited Hot Springs National Park, in Arkansas, where we had two camps. We intended to spend the afternoon there, fly on to Dallas, Texas, for the night, the next day fly to El Paso, and from there drive to Big Bend State Park south of Alpine. The state park later became a part of the present Big Bend National Park.

There was a commercial plane leaving Hot Springs for Dallas about six o'clock in the evening. When we arrived at Hot Springs in the morning we found that the national park superintendent had made arrangements with the chamber of commerce for a banquet that night, at which Fechner was to speak. This was not on our schedule, and the flight we intended to take to Dallas was the last one that day. Fechner didn't seem to be disturbed, and he asked us to arrange some way to get to Dallas after the talk so as not to disrupt his trip. We chartered a plane that would take off when we got through with the banquet that night and get us to Dallas, where we could pick up our scheduled flight in the morning. But when it came time to board the plane, thick fog had set in. The airport at Hot Springs was not at that time fully lighted, and the pilot said takeoff would be dangerous, but he'd try to make it if we wanted to. We decided not to fly. We then arranged for two government cars with four good ranger drivers, two to a car, that would drive us to Dallas. Herb Maier, the Park Service regional director for the southwestern region, was with us. We got to Dallas the next morning just in time to catch the plane on which we had reservations to El Paso.

It just happened that Herb Maier and I had a very important question to ask Fechner, and we were trying to find the right time to do it. Although we felt he would not turn us down, we needed his specific approval. About a half hour after taking off Fechner was dozing and nodding. I told him we had plans for constructing a building in Santa Fe as the regional office for the Park Service. The CCC boys would make the adobe bricks and would do a good part of the construction, but we had some Public Works Administration funds for materials and skilled labor. We told him that a museum in Santa Fe would give us the property on condition that the building would be for the National Park Service regional office. He said, "That sounds reasonable." I continued, "Bob, I think we need your approval of it—it's a fairly good-sized project, and I have the plans here." You could tell that Bob Fechner was not too anxious to get into much of a discussion; he was more in the mood for a nap. He said, "Well, if it meets the legal requirements and you think it's all right, Connie, go ahead. It will be all right with me." Herb Maier must have called Santa Fe as soon as we reached El Paso and told them to go ahead, or perhaps he had even started before we had Fechner's approval, because when we arrived in Santa Fe about five days later the foundations were being dug.

By the way, Herb Maier was I believe the only person in the Park Service group who could boast of being officially investigated by the Department of the Interior. Somebody had made some kind of charge against Herb. It never was clear to me what these charges were, but the department sent a man out from Washington to tail him. Herb found out about it and told me that he felt somebody was following him everywhere he went. One day when I was eating lunch in the Executive Dining room in the Interior Building I found my self sitting across from one of the secretarial investigators. I finally told him that I had heard there was somebody investigating one of our CCC employees and that if he ever got orders to investigate me, I'd appreciate it if he'd let me know. I informed him that I would tell him things he could never find out otherwise. Then, about six months later this man sent me a report on Herb Maier with a note asking for my recommendations. The report was an inch thick. I turned to the "Summary and Recommendations" in the back of the book and found that the only charge against Herb was that he was probably an inactive Republican. I sent the report back to the investigator and recommended that it be put in "file 13." That was the last either Herb or I ever heard of the investigation.

We had one interesting experience before we got to Santa Fe. About halfway to the top of the Chisos Mountains there was a state park of about 640 acres in a small valley in what was called "the window." There was a camp there, and most of the men were of Hispanic descent. It was early in December, and they wanted to put on a Christmas party before we left. They arranged a very hospitable gathering. Having heard that eggnog was appropriate at Christmastime, they had to have eggnog for their party. We drank some of it, but it wasn't too easy to do! We finally found out that it was made from goat milk, the only milk they could scare up on short notice, and tequila. The spirit was right, but I've tasted better eggnog. The cocktail hour was in the officers' and supervisory personnel quarters, after which we joined the boys for an extra fine Christmas dinner.

The high-water mark in the growth of the CCC was reached with a total of 2,916 camps on June 30, 1935. It became evident early in the period, however, that there would not be enough enrollees to keep that number of camps up to reasonable strength. The average strength per camp shortly after the beginning of the 1936 fiscal year, that is, around August, 1935, was 210 men, and by the last day of the fiscal year, June 30, 1936, it was 134 men. The chart on page 149 gives a summary of the camps by the odd periods. Each period lasted six months, April 1 to September 31 and October 1 to March 31. The years shown on the chart are fiscal years, which then ended on June 30, or in the middle of the CCC six-month period. It should be pointed out that at that time the fiscal year for the federal government began on July 1 and ended on June 30 of the following calendar year. All reports to the president and to Congress on such programs as the CCC were made at the end of the fiscal year, June 30. Consequently the reports referred to money spent for a twelve-month fiscal year that included one-half of two CCC periods and all of another period. The charts simply show all information as of a given day, June 30. The basic records, however, show the location of every camp, the date it was established, and the date it was deactivated.

By January, 1936, it had become obvious that some reduction in the number of camps would be necessary at the beginning of the next period, starting April 1. These shifts did not come easy; people and their families were involved. A quick buildup is not devastating, but a quick reduction is. The total number of camps was reduced to 2,405 by June 30, 1936. The shortage of enrollees was caused by better paying jobs cutting into the availability of recruits. By September, 1937, the average number of men per camp had climbed back to 186, but by June, 1938, it had dropped to 142. The size of the CCC program was reduced by 1939 to its original total of 1,500 camps. It was maintained at this level for the next three years with an average camp enrollment of 190. By 1941 the war was coming on, and drastic steps were taken to cut down the CCC and eventually eliminate it.

The emergency legislation enacted during the first hundred days of the New Deal provided the National Park Service with the opportunity to launch several worthwhile programs that were of tremendous importance to the National Park System and especially to state and county park systems. Furthermore, the conservation trend introduced many federal agencies that had large land holdings to the desirability of making their lands available for public recreation. It certainly established the Park Service as the federal agency primarily responsible for nationwide park, historic, and recreation programs. Of greatest importance, of course, was the liberal funding of emergency conservation work assigned to the service. Although expansion during the thirties was financed primarily with emergency funds, the base for our regular appropriations remained about the same. Consequently, as the war came on and the emergency funds were cut off, the base for the National Park Service was extremely low compared with the service's enlarged responsibilities.

Number of CCC Camps by Fiscal Years
Compiled from the CCC Director's Final Annual Report to the President in 1942