CCC Museum In Stafford Open For Summer And Fall

STAFFORD, CT — The Connecticut Civilian Conservation Corps Museum in Stafford is slated to be open for its summer and fall season.

The CCC Museum is located on the the former Administration Building of Camp Conner, 166 Chestnut Hill Road.

The museum is open through the Columbus weekend on Sundays from noon to 3 p.m.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was formed on March 31, 1933 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program, designed to relieve the poverty and unemployment of the Great Depression.

The US Army supervised the camps, which had about 200 men each on staff.

In the first year, 13 camps were set up in some Connecticut state parks and forests:

1. West Cornwall, Housatonic Meadows
2. Niantic, Military Reservation
3. Eastford, Natchaug
4. Haddam, Cockaponset
5. Union, Nipmuck
6. New Fairfield, Squantz Pond
7. Cobalt, Meshomasic
8. Voluntown, Pachaug
9. Thomaston, Black Rock
10. East Hartland, Tunxis
11. Clinton, Cockaponset
12. West Goshen, Mohawk
13. Torrington, Paugnut (Burr Pond)

The Army Government Dock in New London was the supply depot for all the Connecticut camps.

In the following years, eight camps were added

1. Barkhamsted, American Legion State Forest
2. East Hampton, Salmon River
3. Danbury, Wooster Mountain
4. Stafford Springs, Shenipsit
5. Portland, Meshomasic
6. Windsor (Poquonock), Experiment Station Land
7. Kent, Macedonia Brook
8. Madison, Cockaponset

Men ages 18 to 25 (with families on relief) enrolled for six months and worked a 40-hour week for $30 per month. The government sent $25 a month home and the men received $5 spending money. The men were given food, uniforms, shelter and medical care. At first they lived in tents and later they lived in wooden buildings.

Workers built trails, roads, campsites, dams, stocked fish, built and maintained fire towers, observer cabins and telephone lines, fought fires ad planted millions of trees.

The CCC disbanded in 1942 due to the need for men in WW II.

The museum was originally called the Northeast States CCC Museum and was founded by Connecticut CCC crews who were members of Chapter 170 of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni. The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, State Parks Department, Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, provided the museum with the partial use of the building, staff, and supplies.

The museum has many photos, displays, information, and artifacts from the 21 CCC camps in Connecticut and other Northeast states.

In 2022 the DEEP had a shortage of workers and the museum was going to be closed, but volunteers composed of CCC family members and friends stepped forward and opened the museum again on Sundays from 12 noon to 3 p.m.

To volunteer or for more information, call Marty Podskoch at 860-267-2442.