All about the Civilian Conservation Corps

MILFORD, PA — A program about the Depression era and the formation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) is planned for Saturday, May 10, at 5:30 p.m. at Grey Towers National Historic Site.

Local historian and writer Peter Osborne will present “We Can Take It: The Roosevelt Tree Army,” as part of the Grey Towers Heritage Association’s community outreach programs and the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read, a national literary initiative that is being coordinated regionally by the American Readers Theatre.

The program is free and open to the public, and the Grey Towers Heritage Association encourages participants to bring a non-perishable food item for donation to a local food pantry.

Osborne’s program will focus on how President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped bring the nation out of the depression with the corps, which had several programs locally, including High Point State Park in New Jersey and Promised Land State Park in Pennsylvania. Governor Gifford Pinchot, whose home was Grey Towers, advised FDR on the CCC program, which was modeled after Pinchot’s Pennsylvania roads program.

Osborne will sign copies of his “We Can Take It” book, which will be available for sale in the Grey Towers Interpretive Book Store.

For more information call 570/296-9630 or visit fs.fed.us/gt and greytowers.org.