President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs to bring the United States out of the Great Depression put millions of men to work and transformed local, state, and national public lands. While New Deal programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) are best known for their efforts to preserve and restore ecosystems on public land, the CCC also devoted millions of dollars and man-hours to building roads, trails, and buildings on the same lands they sought to preserve. Between 1934 and 1941, CCC crews built over 100,000 miles of roads and trails, developed 52,000 acres of campgrounds, and built hundreds of shelters, cabins, and outbuildings, including over 2,400 “comfort stations” (bathrooms) nationwide. Camp Cavern CCC crews used plans by National Park Service (NPS) architect O. John Ballas to build this Rustic style comfort station in 1938. The building’s massive native granite walls and log rafters, natural hillside setting, and widely separated men’s and women’s entrances aptly reflect design ideals promoted in NPS publications between 1934 and 1965.
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