The Great Depression of 1929 caused massive hardships across the United States of America. In response to the dire economic situation, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a series of public works programs designed to employ thousands of Americans in different areas of infrastructure, agriculture, and forestry-related jobs. For nine years, the Civilian Conservation Corps changed the American landscape by building fire towers, fire brakes, roads, and planting trees. By midsummer of 1942, the men from the C.C.C. had planted a staggering 3 billion trees across our country. Over that same period, there had been over 78,000 men employed across a total of 127 C.C.C. camps in Georgia. (30-35 camps were operating at any one time)
In June of 1933, a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was built on Colonel Sam Tate's 10,000-acre Tate Mountain Estates. It was built on the site of Tate's former Dude Ranch - where for over a year people who visited the Tate Mountain Estates would embark on horseback rides, sometimes traveling as far away as Amicalola Falls some eleven miles away. According to the Pickens County Progress, the ranch house and other buildings made it a good location to start. (NOTE: The Dude Ranch was built by Vernie Champion around 1911 for Charles H. Whittington, an early land developer. To learn more about the origin of the Dude Rancg, click here.) It was also the first camp in the state to get started on its forestry work. The primary reason for its early start was because of its leadership. The Camp Superintendent, Eber Carle Perrow, had already surveyed the vast majority Col. Tate's lands and knew the mountains and forests of his estates intimately.
The old dude ranch house served as the Headquarters Building for the year the camp was there. - Note the ambulance in front.
The officers of Camp 1449 and a better shot showing the size of the ranch house.
Captain W.M. Bomer, 1st Lieutenant Floyd L. Brown, 2nd Lieutenant Harold Gourgues (first-row center) along with the civilian staff (The Camp Inspection report from Dec 2, 1933 lists H. V. Brinkman, W.F. Montgomery Jr., M.J. Montgomery, F.W. Neel, J.D. Adams, Gordon Maddox, W.H. Johnson, Fred Forbes, Don Wallace, M.P. Dean, R.F. Conn, C.H. Keys and a medical officer named 1st Lieutenant H.J. Bradley.
For just under a year Camp Langley - named after a deceased C.C.C. man who died in training at Fort Benning, built roads within Tate Mountain Estates (including the main road up Hendrix and Big Stump Mountains, and several others, including a road that ran from Big Stump Mountain all the way to Lake Sconti on the eastern side of Mount Oglethorpe. They also made the fire tower on Sassafras Mountain, near the area around present-day Monument Road, and built various fire brakes to prevent the spread of fires. One of the fire brakes is still reportedly visible as a small trench that runs quite a distance on a hilltop just south of Bent Tree's southeastern border, not far from a fork in Darnell Creek. According to 1st Lieutenant F.L. Brown, the base camp location was built at around 2,400 feet elevation. This elevation marker is far different than the elevation of the primary camp location located at 1,600 feet.
At the camp, two-thirds of the men lived in two rows of tents, six men a piece, between the barn and the ranch house that served as Headquarters. The remainder of the men lived in the loft of the barn. The officers lived in the Twin Oaks, a former guest house of the Old Whittington Dude Ranch. There also was a forestry office and a field kitchen.
One-third of the camp men lived in the loft of the barn and all of them took showers on the ground level.
Two of the makeshift structures on the left are a barber shop and a clinic. One of the remaining structures was a canteen where the men could buy supplies. There was a barracks that doubled as a kitchen too. The Army mess officer in charge of the kitchen, 2nd Lieutenant Harold W. Gourges, was a native Louisianian. After his years in the CCC, like other men at the camp, went on to serve in World War II. According to Thomas Faircloth, another enrollee at the camp, the men who worked in the kitchen were treated like kings just like the men who cooked in the days of the wagon train.
The kitchen staff at the camp.
When the men weren't engaged in Forestry work, they had ample time to learn various subjects that were taught at the camp. Among the classes offered, there was: Reading, Writing, French, business math, civics, engineering, sociology, history, mechanics, forestry and more.
Professor E.C. Perrow (seen much later at his private mailbox house near Ball Creek) was the Camp Supervisor and Educational Instructor
The men engaged in various recreational activities like horseshoes and basketball and attended church services at the camp every two weeks.
Camp 1449 - P-77's Basketball team with David Louis Hardegree at the far left, second row.
Once a month the men would hold a monthly dance and go into Tate, Marble City and Jasper to find dance partners. Sometimes local schools would hold box-suppers - a practice where a man would not only win a fully prepared meal, but also gain a date with the lady who made the meal. One of the young ladies who lived closest to the camp would routinely sneak out with the men. This would only happen when her younger sister would take a quarter as payment for arranging the tryst. By 1934, the younger sibling had earned a solid twenty dollars of quarters.
All in all, there were about 200 men at the camp. Three of the men were Army officers. Thirteen of the men weren't enrolled in the CCC and held jobs as foremen, machine operators, blacksmiths, and camp supervisor. 176 men were assigned to forestry work.
Some of the unidentified men in the following pictures were George "Lumberhead" Cannon, Richard "Baby Ray" Kimberly, "Penrod" Peavy, Henry "Dr. Foots" Jordan, Thomas Faircloth, Frank Bullington, Darden, Deese, and McDaniel.
Originally the men at Camp 1449 were only supposed to stay for 6 months, but an extension was granted, permitting them to stay for a year. By June of 1934, many of the men had moved to CCC camp Butler in Taylor County. But for the most part, the men worked hard and served their country well.
They held a farewell ceremony in Butler, and the men looked back fondly on the time they had shared. Some men would move on to serve at Camp Bradley, F-7 in South Carolina, others would be discharged. All of them would think fondly back to their days in the forested mountains of Pickens County.
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A year later, in 1935, there was a massive fire at the site caused by arsonists. By that time, the Georgia Marble Company had acquired the land where the CCC camp/Dude Ranch was. Georgia Marble offered a $250 reward in the Pickens Progress in December of 1935 to catch the person(s) responsible.
The fire took out over 2,500 acres and 30 men were called in to assist with putting it out. This fire was one of fourteen forest fires that happened that week. Nine of the fourteen were successfully put out right away. At times, the fire was being blown out 100 yards at a time with the high winds they had and it was hard work to preserve some of the structures.
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A few years later in 1937, Georgia Appalachian Trail Club members carried up the original distance marker sign, three by four feet, to the top of Mount Oglethorpe in sections from the Old Dude Ranch.
For seventeen years, the Appalachian Trail's original terminus was on the top of Mount Oglethorpe. The approach trail from Tate took hikers from the intersection of Highway 5 and Highway 53 east towards Marble Hill and eventually to the Dude Ranch as one of the waypoints to the start of the AT.
Description of the approach trail from Tate with distances given.
Original map from the 1942 Southern Guide to the Appalachians - Dude Ranch just east of Mole Mountain.
Dude Ranch area 1955
1940 Census Enumeration Map with locations
The location of former Camp 1449 as seen on Bent Tree Golf Course's sixth fairway.
Very Interesting.