Remember When?

SANDERS COUNTY C.C.C.

by Fredi Pargeter and Glenn T. Garrison

Note: The Civilian Conservation Corps was developed as a relief agency during the Great Depression years. President Roosevelt convinced Congress to create the C.C.C. which provided conservation jobs for unemployed men, ages 18 to 25.

When the CCC was established, there were strict requirements for enrollees:

Male

US citizen by birth or naturalization

18 to 25 years old

Single

From a family on public relief rolls

Agreeable to allot $22 to $25 monthly of $30 wage to family

These requirements were slightly modified over the next seven years. In one instance, families of later enrollees from Sanders County were not necessarily on public relief rolls, and all sent $25 monthly home to their families.

Statistically the average CCC enrollee was 20 years old, from a family of six, with an eighth grade education and unemployed for at least nine months.

Norm Knudson

A typical recruit/enrollee was Norm Knudson, long-time Sanders County resident. His story is like so many other young men who took advantage of the educational opportunities and the work ethic established.

Norm Knudson was born in Plentywood, Montana, the son of Norwegian immigrants. His father, Chris, originally went to Canada to homestead and spent one winter there living on jack rabbits before deciding to settle in Lostwood, near Stanley, North Dakota, where he raised wheat and cattle. The couple loaded up the cattle, household goods and children and moved to Plentywood in 1915. Norm was born there on December 6, 1917, the fifth of seven children.

Norm and his siblings attended country schools where one teacher taught between 15 and 30 students. Because of Chris Knudson’s health, the family moved again, this time settling at Trout Creek. His mother died when she was 29, Norm, then 12, and his year younger sister worked hard on the farm and took over the cooking responsibilities. His dad, with the help of the children, cleared the land and planted alfalfa and a garden. Chris was supporting his family on a $30 per month pension payment so it wasn’t a difficult decision when some of Norm’s friends encouraged him to go to the Sanders County Courthouse and sign up for the CCCs. They were Milton Butte, Dick Daniels, Clarence Moles, Everett Barrett, Marcus Pyatt, and Paul Shade. Like the others, Norm gladly volunteered for the Corps as there wasn’t work in Sanders County.

These volunteers were sent to Fort Missoula in October 1936 for two weeks. Then Norm was off to Lolo where he served for six months. While there he worked on heavy equipment changing the Lolo Creek channel and building the road between Lolo and Lolo Hot Springs.At the end of his enlistment, he was offered a job by the assistant ranger at Trout Creek and worked with the Forest Service until the fall of 1940. It was the training at Lolo that prepared him for the Forest Service where he worked on trails, roads, telephone lines and lookouts, including the Gem Peak lookout where he lived in a tent while helping to build the structure. He also helped build the Berray Mountain lookout up Bull River.

Norm has always had a string of luck in his life. The most memorable was that he was the first of the Sanders County men drafted for army service in World War II although he wasn’t the first to go. He joined the regular army in February 1941. His troop ship was three days out of Pearl Harbor when it was bombed by the Japanese. His ship anchored in Brisbane Harbor on December 24, 1941 and he spent the next two years in Australia serving in the Medical Corps as a dental assistant, even filling a couple of teeth.

He mustered out of the army in October 1944, and settled in Havre, Montana, where he began his lifetime work of cutting meat. He returned to Thompson Falls in 1952 working for Macho’s grocery. He also worked for Stobie’s IGA, and then founded Norm’s Custom Meat Cutting. Macho’s Grocery was located where True Value Hardware is today. Chris Stobie bought the grocery store from Macho’s and later moved it to the former VFW building next door to the Courthouse. Norm credits the CCC with continuing the work ethic that his dad taught him. Norm always knew how to work.