The Laurels

The Laurels. . Once known as Dry Creek Camp Ground, this park was developed during the mid-1930s under the New Deal's Emergency Relief Act. Many of the features you see, including the shelters and wading area, were completed in 1937., Until the early 1940s, CCC enrollees from Camp Cordell Hull (F-5), located about seven miles southwest of here, provided maintenance for The Laurels and three other nearby National Forest recreation areas. They lived on-site, two at a time in a tent, assisting the caretaker in keeping the grounds, creek, and spring box clean and in good condition. Since firewood was scarce, one of their major duties was supplying picnickers' fireplaces with wood cut from hemlock and chestnut logs hauled from other public lands nearby. , To minimize graffiti damage to the log structures, in 1940 enrollees installed "carving logs" inside these picnic shelters. They even cut and supplied marshmallow/wiener forks for each picnic site to help reduce damage to adjacent trees and shrubs., Known as The Laurels from 1939 on, the recreation area received its official designation in 1950, to be used "for nothing beyond one day picnicking." The setting, described as one of the prettiest possible, beneath massive white pine and hemlock," retains that historic character today. While you're here, remember the efforts of the Civilian Conservation Corps and USDA Forest Service in managing this site for more than 60 years., (Inset) , Spirit of the CCC , (Caption) Enrollees from Company 1455 getting clay for Rock Creek Road., "Idle through no fault of your own, you were enrolled from city and rural homes and offered an opportunity to engage in healthful outdoor work on forest, park and soil conservation projects of definite practical value to all people of the nation. , President Franklin D. Roosevelt, during a radio tribute to members of the CCC, 1936., The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created during the Great Depression of the 1930s to save natural resources and provide work for the unemployed. Its mission was unique: to revitalize land suffering from poor farming practices and overlogging. Through numerous labor-intensive projects, including road and trail construction, reforestation rosion control, and even firefighting, the CCC helped right many of these wrongs. In Tennessee and most other states, the CCC built some of the first state parks and Forest Service recreation grounds.