President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Second New Deal had a significant impact on Mendocino County when it passed in 1935. Nearly 3,000 county residents were “on relief,” approximately 12% of the county’s population.
The Second New Deal created the Works Progress Administration (WPA), an agency funded through the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, a five-billion-dollar work relief bill. Between May 1935 and February 1936, the WPA spent $737,246 in Mendocino County. Projects included work on Highway 20 and construction of a high school in Round Valley.
This was all before the two biggest WPA projects in the county: construction of the 16-mile highway from Longvale to Dos Rios and the camp complex that in 1976 became the Mendocino Woodlands State Park.
The Mendocino Woodlands project was announced in January 1936, planned as the development of a 5,000-acre Recreation Demonstration Area (RDA). Built along the north side of Big River, the campground was near the former site of Boyle’s logging camp.
Construction on Camp One began in 1936. Up to 300 men were employed on the project at a given time, from both the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The workers lived in a tent camp on Little Lake Road, about three miles east of Mendocino.
The Camp One complex included a dining hall, a recreation hall, bathrooms and washhouses, an infirmary, caretaker’s cottage, and 45 cabins. The buildings were sided with redwood, and each cabin had a stone fireplace and a balcony. The first campers were welcomed in the summer of 1938 — a family from Contra Costa County.
Camps two and three were designed for youth, but with federal money moving towards the impending war effort, the camps were more modest than Camp One. In 1940, funding ran dry while Camp Three was still under construction. It had a smaller dining hall and tent cabins.
The Woodlands project also included improvements on roads and trails in the area, sewer and water systems, a concrete swimming pool, and fire circles at each camp. As construction ended, the Woodlands was the only Recreation Demonstration Area in California, the only one built in a redwood forest, and just one of two built west of the Rocky Mountains. In 1997, the Mendocino Woodlands State Park was named a National Historic Landmark.
Averee McNear is the curator at the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino, Calif.
Thank you for this article & the photo! I consider myself a local, but I’m really not a local- came from Sonoma County, lived other places, etc. But this really meant a lot to me, because my family came out from Oklahoma during the dust bowl, and they went from doing grapes in southern California to doing apples and Sebastopol to doing timber work. And Mendocino County and then moving up North to do timber work in Humboldt County. Then they moved to Modesto for fruit…. Anyways, I just wanted to show my appreciation for this article & picture because I enjoy seeing history related to my great grandparents. Thank you!
Sorry for my typos – talk to text….
My Grandparents came to Hopland and worked all over in Agriculture and Lumber during the same period.
I noticed how beauty and good design were actually important during that time . I’m a contractor who nerds out on old well built projects.
I moved back and I’m way very happy with the decision after 35 years in way too noisy Sonoma County.
Sebastopol was great years ago , now it’s like Napa a place where all anyone talks about is food and drink