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Gooseberry Statue Honors CCC Workers
The scenic beauty was already in place, but it was the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s and early 1940s who built the roads and bridges that gave the public access to the natural resources and recreational opportunities in Minnesota state parks and elsewhere. A tribute to their handiwork and the structures of wood and stone they built is in place at Gooseberry Falls State Park.
The bronze statue entitled "CCC Worker" is a 6-foot 1-inch depiction of one of the young men who served in the corps. According to Len Price, executive director, Minnesota Conservation Corps, the statue weighs 600 pounds and has been poured from an original cast created by Elliot Gantz & Co. foundry in New York.
More than 86,000 men served in the CCC in Minnesota and more than 3 million more worked in programs throughout the nation. In the short span of 10 years, from 1933 to 1943, these groups planned parks, planted trees, built roads, fought forest fires, battled erosion, and constructed stone and log buildings that are still in use today in Minnesota state parks and other state and national parks across the country.
Gooseberry Falls State Park has one of the most extensive displays of work done by the CCC or any other New Deal agency in the state. Dozens of structures remain including the stone Concourse, often called the ‘Castle in the Park,’ which serves as a backdrop for the CCC Worker statue.
