♪♪ [Nebbe] Iowa's natural landscape holds many wonders, rolling hills, deep river valleys and outstanding geological features.

Nestled within that natural beauty are iconic structures that are themselves a work of art, like the boathouse at Backbone State Park, the stone bridge at Ledges and the spillway at Beed's Lake.

These projects and dozens more were built by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 1930s.

♪♪ [Nebbe] The CCC was a government program founded in the midst of the Great Depression by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1933, nearly one in four Americans was out of a job and there was an urgent need to employ young men.

The men who joined the Corp were young, some would say still boys.

They were the boys of the CCC.

♪♪ [Don Foley] We did help a lot of people that really were down and out and it got them going a little bit because there wasn't any money, nobody had any money.

♪♪ [Owen Beaman] Times were rough.

My dad had died and I and my brother were still at home and you couldn't find a job or anything.

And we had lost the farm where my dad had spent his lifetime saving up to buy the farm and he owed quite a bit on it and you need eating money, my mother needed eating money.

♪♪ ♪ Why did I join the CCC?

♪ ♪ Why did I join the CCC?

[Nebbe] Only single men between the ages of 18 and 25 whose families were on relief were eligible to join the Civilian Conservation Corp.

In exchange for hard labor, a CCC boy received room and board, clothing, training and a monthly paycheck of $30, $25 of which was sent straight home to his family.

♪♪ [Nebbe] Just the idea of three meals and a bed were enough to get many young men to enroll in the CCC.

♪♪ [Otto Schwartz] It was run very much like in the Army.

We slept in Army cots, we made the bed like the Army, we had things, cleaned things like the Army, we polished our shoes like they did in the Army, very much so.

It was good training, I'll tell you what.

I grew up in a hurry.

[Nebbe] The camps operated under military style rules, but it wasn't all work.

There were sports teams and educational opportunities.

♪♪ [Nebbe] The Civilian Conservation Corp was designed to help not only the nation's human resources, but its natural resources as well.

♪♪ [Nebbe] Much of what we enjoy today in Iowa's state parks, we owe to the hard labor of more than 46,000 young men.

[Owen Beaman] I look at it now and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to us, us young people then that didn't have a job.

And I think it was a good deal.

I think Franklin Roosevelt knew what he was doing.

♪♪