Joe Uknavage, Jr. served in our nation's Civilian Conservation Corps 1936-1939, then joined the U. S. Navy. I have written about his CCC experience previously, in September 2024. (Click on this photo to go to that previous story.)
Recently, as I reread old letters from Dad I came across specific information about his time in one of the camps. In 1938 he was in Dubois, Idaho, Co. 4607. In his letter of 1993 Dad mailed me a photograph of him holding up a nice-sized trout he had just caught in one of those cold, clean streams that Idaho is famous for.
In this letter he enclosed a newspaper article about some older men playing baseball, senior league baseball for retired guys. He identified the man throwing the ball as his CCC friend who had taken the photo of him holding the fish. He said, "the man with me didn't catch any fish."
That man was George Hasbach, After serving in the CCC's he became "an infielder who hit .280 in the late 1930s for the Cincinnati Reds' minor-league team in Salt Lake City, Utah". He was from Palatine, Illinois, and died there in 2012 at the age of 92.
By August 1933, Idaho ranked third in the nation in numbers of men and CCC camps established, with approximately 19,200 men in 96 camps, although the number of camps in operation gradually declined over the years. Many camps were seasonal, shifting to warmer locations in the region during the
winter months. Virtually every part of the state benefited from CCC activity, with projects that included firefighting, white pine blister rust control, reforestation, irrigation control,
constructing roads, bridges, lookout towers, state and national parks, campgrounds, and telephone lines.
Dad's experience in Dubois, Idaho in 1938 must have left a good impression on him for in 1955 he returned to that state with his wife and four children in tow, to Salmon, Idaho, about two hours from Dubois. We lived there about six months, until school was out in May 1956, then moved to a more remote town named Cobalt where he mined cobalt for a living, and fished, once again, in those cold, clean streams for trout.
