USDA Archaeologist to Discuss Depression-Era Environmental Program at UA’s Moundville Park

A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service archaeologist will discuss the Depression-era development of the archaeological site at Moundville into a park during a free talk on Saturday, Oct. 13, at 1 p.m. at The University of Alabama’s Moundville Archaeological Park.

Bob Pasquill will discuss the local, state, and national accomplishments of the Civilian Conservation Corps, during the talk at the park’s Nelson B. Jones Conference Center.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was an environmental program created in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remedy uncontrolled environmental exploitation and to provide jobs during the Great Depression. According to Pasquill, during the nine years after the program’s creation, approximately 3 million young men and veterans worked on projects that helped the nation’s severely neglected and abused natural resources.

Pasquill will offer a glimpse of life – from CCC uniforms to postcards – of the CCC cadets who were encamped at the Moundville archaeological site. The cadets developed it into a public park-today’s Moundville Archaeological Park, a unit of The University of Alabama.

Pasquill is visiting various areas in the state, interviewing former cadets in preparation to write a book on the CCC in Alabama. Many former cadets who lived at the Moundville CCC camp will be in attendance, following a reunion of their own at the Park.

This public education program is free of charge. For more information, call 205/371-2234.

The park, located on the banks of the Black Warrior River 13 miles south of Tuscaloosa, preserves 320 acres of what was once the largest and most powerful prehistoric Native American community in North America.