THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230227
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Volunteer Karen Richards is researching the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps whose members in the 1930s turned a wilderness into what became First Landing/Seashore State Park.
Today the area is a botanical wonderland with Spanish moss and cypress ponds, but it once was so uninhabitable that even loggers gave up on harvesting its huge trees.
During the Great Depression, hundreds of CCC workers braved mosquitoes and heat to hack trails out of the tangled undergrowth and build cabins, bath houses and picnic grounds. Thanks in part to the CCC, Seashore State Park opened in 1936 as one of the first state parks in Virginia.
Richards has dug up a lot of factual information, such as how the CCC camp itself was laid out, what trails remain today and how many of the six cabins the corps built are standing today. The answer is six.
She even knows the men were paid $30 a month to work five days a week, eight hours a day, and that $25 of the salary was usually sent to their families.
Although the salary sounds pitiful by today's standards, she knows CCC enrollees got room, board and training which was more than many of them had at home during the Depression.
Richards also knows that the cabins were equipped with water, sewer and electricity, but she has come up short learning much about day-to day camp life.
``Ideally it would be nice to meet someone who worked here,'' said Richards. ``I want some personal details, the anecdotes of life.''
There should be someone still alive who could help her out, because hundreds of folks attended CCC camps at the park over several years. Two hundred enrollees were on hand when the camp opened in 1933, the number rose to a high of 600 in 1934 and the camp continued until World War II. Each enrollee stayed for only six months so any number of CCCers came and went from our area.
Richards also knows that the CCC enrollees at Seashore were all African Americans, which was unusual. It was one of 12 camps for African Americans out of 60 camps in the state. She also knows that most of the enrollees came here from out of state.
``Is there anyone who came from another area and liked Virginia and decided to stay?'' she asked. ``Did anyone meet and marry a local girl?''
Richards said she would also like to talk to locals who were familiar with the camps. She knows there must be some people in this area who remember the period when the CCC was at the park or have old pictures of the way the park was when it was first being built.
Richards hasn't found any maps of the what the area looked like before the CCC went to work. Everyone knows the main trail was there, because it was an old logging road. But she feels sure there were other trails through the park, too, because vacationers used to ride horses in the area.
``People who grew up around here might recall what the first CCC bath houses were like,'' she went on. ``I found a lot of `oysters roasters' marked on the blue prints from that time. Does anybody remember roasting oysters in the park?''
Richards is working hard to compile the information in time for a program at 8 p.m. Friday in the amphitheater on the park's campground side. The program is free and open to the public.
She has delved into park records and old scrapbooks. She has even met with a CCC alumni group here but none of the members are alumni from the state park camp.
Richards, who lives in Norfolk, got involved in researching the CCC camps at the park when she volunteered to straighten up the park's files. She started coming across information about the corps and the work they did to build the new state park.
``The more I read, the more I wanted to know about it,'' Richards said. ``I didn't even know there were all-black camps.
``I would like to get that personal touch,'' she added.
If you worked with the CCC at the park or if you were familiar with the park back in those days or know someone who was, give Richards a hand and call her at 440-8243.
P.S. OTHER PROGRAMS COMING UP at First Landing/Seashore State Park include a hike at 10 a.m. today with naturalist Vickie Shufer and a bird walk with National Audubon Society member Fred Adams at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Both walks leave from the park's visitor center.
TAKE YOUR SUMMER VISITORS on a 2 1/2-hour trolley tour of our historic sites. Passport to History leaves at 9 a.m. every Wednesday and Thursday through Sept. 8 from the Information Kiosk at 24th Street and Atlantic Avenue. Tickets for $7 are available at the kiosk, beginning at 8:30 a.m., and include visits to two historic homes and the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia. Call 340-1732.
A WATERCOLOR EXHIBIT by Taylor Newton Ikin, a Norfolk native now residing in Tampa, Fla., is on exhibit through July 9 in the lower gallery at the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia. Call 422-1587. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
The six cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps at First
Landing/Seashore State Park in the 1930s are still standing today.
by CNB