Camp Francis Cook, a CCC outpost on Mount Spokane.

The Great Depression brought thousands of young men to the Inland Northwest to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was FDR’s project to get idle young men off the street, somewhat isolated, in camps across the West, where they planted trees, built trails and shelters and worked on other projects. About 200 camped at Mount Spokane. The program successfully put young hands to work, hands that otherwise might have been wandering aimlessly, riding the rails from place to place or turning to crime.

Monday’s column will be about Camp Francis Cook on Mount Spokane. Cook, a pioneer newspaperman and developer, plotted and built the road to the top of the mountain. He built a cabin on a lower mountain, but thought the top would be a perfect place to picnic and take in the expansive views. Some of Cook’s vision came to pass when the CCC crews set up camp and put their unskilled labor to work. People called the CCC “Roosevelt’s Tree Army”, partly because of the quasi-military structure and because it took young men from around the nation and shipped them to the West, where they did unglamorous work in inhospitable places.