Mount Rainier Blog

As we celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, the America250 initiative invites us to explore the hands that shaped our most treasured landscapes. At Mount Rainier Guest Services, a proud member of the Adventures Unbound family, we are honoring the legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the young workers who carved trails, raised lookouts, and built the very infrastructure visitors depend on today.

From New York City to the Wilderness

In 1934, a group of African American men traveled from the bustling streets of New York to the rugged wilderness of Mount Rainier. They became part of CCC Camp 6 at Ohanapecosh, a rare example of an integrated unit during an era when most CCC camps were segregated. These enrollees cleared five acres of wilderness, installed water lines, and constructed twenty stove areas to create what is now the beloved Ohanapecosh Campground. Remarkably, four of the comfort stations they built are still in active use nearly a century later.

Their work was just one chapter of the CCC’s transformative impact on the mountain. Across the park, corps members constructed the White River Mess Hall and Dormitory, the last remaining CCC camp structure in the park. They built the Paradise Ski-Tow Powerhouse in 1937, supporting the park’s growing winter recreation scene. And high above the treeline, CCC crews constructed a chain of fire lookouts that still stand as sentinels against wildfire, including Gobbler’s Knob in 1933, Mount Fremont in 1934, and Tolmie Peak in 1933.

Walking in Their Footsteps Today

Every trail you hike, every campsite you reserve, and every lookout you photograph at Mount Rainier carries the fingerprints of CCC workers who gave years of their young lives to this mountain. The campground at Ohanapecosh, the fire lookouts along the ridgelines, the stone-and-timber structures that define the park’s rustic character: all of it began with the labor of corps members during the Great Depression.

Today, when visitors gather around a stove area at Ohanapecosh or catch the sunset from a fire lookout trail, they are experiencing a living monument to a generation that chose service over despair. To learn more about how we are celebrating the diverse stories behind America’s national heritage, visit America250 at Adventures Unbound.