During the Depression the NPS continued to define park visitors as all those people who visited the park for pleasure. The actual number of people in the park was considerably higher as hundreds of men came to work in emergency relief camps. In 1933-34, the Civil Works Administration employed several hundred men and furnished their lodging at Longmire, Ohanapecosh, and Carbon River. Between 1933 and 1940, the Civilian Conservation Corps had camps at Tahoma Creek, Narada Falls, Ipsut Creek, St. Andrews Creek, White River, Ohanapecosh, and Sunshine Point, with as many as two hundred men in each camp company. Altogether, these relief camps held as many as a thousand men during the early to mid-1930s.  Five Emergency Conservation Work Camps are authorized for the park. They are manned by newly recruited Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) men from various parts of the United States. Training is provided by park service personnel. The CCC use inexpensive skills to build and repair structures, campgrounds, roads and trails.  During the eight years of operation, there were over 25 camps established in the park. The CCC built campgrounds, improved trails, erected the famed arch entryways, and provided wildfire protection. Sunshine Point Campground was the site of the first year-round CCC camp, in 1937, and was one of the last to close, in 1940. (Courtesy of NPS Mount Rainier Archives.)

Credits and Sources:

"The Impact of the New Deal." Mount Rainier: Wonderland: An Administrative History of Mount Rainier National Park. National Park Service. Last Modified July 24, 2000. http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/mora/adhi/chap11.htm (Retrieved June 20, 2015).

"A Battle With Depression: 1930-1939.” Mount Rainier Centennial Timeline: The Thirties. National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/features/mora_cenn/thirties/thirties.htm (Retrieved June 20, 2015).

Donald M. Johnstone, Postcard History Series: Mount Rainier National Park(Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2013), 16.