Not Yellowstone, but something better

How a trainload of CCC boys came looking for adventure and instead helped shape the future of the Big Horn Basin

It is easy to take the Shoshone River Basin for granted. Today, green fields stretch to the horizon, lawns surround homes and ribbons of irrigation water wind across one of Wyoming’s most productive agricultural regions.

Little more than a century ago, this landscape looked dramatically different. Much of the Basin was a vast expanse of sagebrush, sand, scattered grasses and occasional stands of cottonwoods along the rivers. The transformation did not happen by accident.

It was built through the vision and determination of thousands of settlers, engineers, laborers and community pioneers supported by what would amount to billions of dollars in federal investment to harness the Shoshone River and carry life-giving water across the dry plains. The thriving farms and communities we enjoy today are monuments to their hard work. 

Few stories illustrate that legacy better than the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps who arrived in Deaver in 1935, expecting the wonders of Yellowstone National Park but instead finding something far less glamorous and ultimately far more important.

Recruiters had told them they were going to Wyoming, near Yellowstone National Park. For boys from Oklahoma who had rarely traveled far from home, images of towering mountains, roaring waterfalls, pine forests and geysers filled their imaginations. Some probably pictured themselves hiking through wilderness or guarding the nation’s first national park.

Instead, the train rolled into Deaver, and the disappointment was immediate.

“We were expecting a fair-sized town,” one of the boys wrote disappointingly. “The town boasts of 84 people and about six or seven places of business.”

Their next question was obvious. “How far is Yellowstone?” The answer wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

Ninety-four miles. For young men without a car in the middle of the Great Depression, it was a thousand miles. 

Their dream of spending weekends in America’s wonderland quickly disappeared.

But while Yellowstone wasn’t waiting for them, something else was.

Work. Lots of it.

The Deaver Canal had already been carrying water for nearly two decades. As part of the Bureau of Reclamation’s massive Shoshone Project, the canal branched off the Frannie Canal and delivered precious irrigation water across thousands of acres of the Big Horn Basin. Without it, many of the farms surrounding Deaver simply could not exist.

Years of heavy use, spring runoff and erosion had taken their toll. The earthen banks needed to be widened, strengthened and, in places, lined with rock. The federal government had plenty of unemployed young men looking for work during the Great Depression, and the Civilian Conservation Corps provided the answer.

In the spring of 1935, about 120 members of a CCC company arrived by train to help improve the canal system.

The Oklahoma newspapers followed one set of local boys closely, publishing humorous letters they mailed back home. Their first stop was Rush Springs, Oklahoma, for physical examinations. Everyone passed, although one writer joked that, while everyone was in good physical condition, “we don’t know about the mental condition.”

Before leaving, several boys drew kitchen duty peeling potatoes and helping prepare sandwiches for the trip west.

Then they boarded Pullman cars heading west.

One recruit slept for nearly twenty-four hours because his upper berth had no window and he couldn’t tell whether it was day or night.

When the train stopped in Denver, the boys finally enjoyed a hot meal after going nearly a full day with little to eat. Unfortunately, they discovered city cafes were not cheap.

The waiter placed before them what they called “slum”, better known as Irish stew, along with one slice of butter, three slices of bread and a cup of coffee.

When they asked for the bill, the waiter calmly replied, “Fifty cents.” That was nearly two days’ wages for many working families during the Depression. “It was somewhat of a shock,” one boy admitted.

Eventually the train reached Deaver. The town wasn’t exactly what they’d imagined. There were no towering peaks. No forests. No geysers. Just endless sunshine, sagebrush and irrigation ditches stretching across the Big Horn Basin.

Their new home wasn’t exactly luxurious either. The camp was still under construction when they arrived. There were no showers. No running water.

The boys quickly discovered an irrigation ditch nearby made an excellent substitute for bathing. Until they jumped in. “The water was cold as ice,” one remembered.

The camp consisted of simple wooden barracks, a mess hall and a handful of support buildings. The young men slept two to a bunk, worked six days each week and earned $30 a month. Twenty-five dollars was automatically sent home to help support their families, leaving them with just $5 in spending money.

Still, $5 was more than many unemployed young men had.

The CCC crews widened canal banks, repaired erosion, reinforced weak sections and dug miles of earth by hand. Some portions required heavy rock lining to prevent the canals from washing out during periods of high water. Long before bulldozers and hydraulic excavators became common, much of the work depended on picks, shovels, wheelbarrows and determination.

The improvements they made nearly 90 years ago continue serving local farmers today.

But work wasn’t the only thing the boys remembered. Their letters home became increasingly funny.

One of their first complaints involved mosquitoes. According to the Oklahoma boys, Wyoming mosquitoes were “almost as big as Oklahoma turkeys.”

Local residents assured them not to worry because the mosquitoes couldn’t survive if it fell to 60 degrees below zero during the winter.

The boys weren’t convinced. “We know those mosquitoes have enough of our hot Oklahoma blood in them to withstand any cold,” one replied.

Another challenge was government-issued clothing. Nothing fit.

Every man was issued the same sized trousers. Each pair was 36 inches around the waist with 32-inch inseams.

“They really look nice on a small man,” one joked. “If we stay here long enough to fill them out, we’ll be here for life.”

Medical treatment provided another adventure. The recruits received typhoid vaccinations in both arms, followed by injections to prevent Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Working the next day with sore arms and feeling a bit sick was tough for everybody. 

Life in camp wasn’t without its frustrations.

Dust storms occasionally swept across the basin so heavily that, according to one letter, “we had to get some shovels to dig some of the boys out of bed.”

When they complained to an officer, he explained that the wind didn’t always blow from the same direction. Sometimes it simply reversed itself.

Then came another surprise. Rain. The storm was apparently such an unusual event that some local residents hardly knew what to make of it.

“This is where the Oklahoma boys came in handy,” one letter joked. “They were glad to tell them what the moisture was.”

Despite the teasing, the boys slowly settled into life in Wyoming.

Their Sunday dinners improved dramatically after they promised to mention the camp cooks in their hometown newspaper. The strategy worked.

Soon the cooks prepared fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad and even ice cream. “The promise of publicity can do great things,” one writer observed.

The boys also became acquainted with the tiny community of Deaver.

One humorous story involved the local female population.

After asking how many girls lived in town, they were informed there were only two. The 120 men were disappointed, but dances were soon arranged that brought young ladies from Cody, Powell and Lovell. Before long several men spent their days off courting the local girls, and by the end of the summer several weddings were held.

Other letters also described practical jokes, homesickness, card games and friendships that developed despite the difficult conditions.

One story from Deaver became a local legend.

A boy went missing from his family’s cabin in the Pryor Mountains. Soon several truck loads of CCC men arrived to help look for the missing lad. Apparently, the boy saw several of the shirtless men with dark summer tans on the second day he had gone missing but hid from them, thinking the men were Indians coming to get him.

It wasn’t until the boy saw one of his friends in the search did he come out of his hiding place on the third day. He was assured that the tan Oklahoma boys were his friends.

By the end of the summer, the CCC boys had become part of the community.

Their labor strengthened the Deaver Canal during a time when irrigation meant survival for local agriculture. Every shovelful of dirt they moved helped protect water deliveries to farms growing sugar beets, beans, alfalfa and grain across the Basin.

But they left something far more lasting than a vacation photograph.

Nearly 90 years later, water still flows through much of the system they helped rebuild. Modern equipment has replaced horses and shovels, but portions of the canal still follow the same route those young men worked to improve during the summer of 1935.

Instead, they discovered something they hadn’t expected: hard work, lifelong friendships, plenty of laughter and the satisfaction of building something that would outlast them all.

And perhaps best of all, just before they headed home to Oklahoma, a Deaver farmer loaded nearly 20 of the young men into the back of his truck and drove them to see the wonders of Yellowstone National Park. Leroy Göbel later described the trip as “the greatest wonder of my whole life and the most beautiful scenery in God’s whole world.”

Few people would use those same words to describe the Shoshone Project’s canals. Yet for those of us who benefit from their water every day, they are every bit as remarkable. The young men of the CCC left behind something just as enduring as their memories of Yellowstone — a stronger canal system that helped transform the Big Horn Basin into one of Wyoming’s richest agricultural regions and continues to sustain it nearly a century later.