In 1932, faced with the task of trying to bring the country out of the Depression, newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt enacted the National Reconstruction Act (NRA), which included the establishment of more than 2,800 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps throughout the country. One of the jobless men who joined the CCC was John Dow, a worker from Woburn, Massachusetts. The camp he was assigned to was in Sandisfield State Forest, a three-mile walk from New Marlborough village. The lifestyle was semi-military. Barracks housed abour fifty men in open bays; the pay was $30 a month. The men built roads and bridges, but their most lasting contribution was the excavation of what became York Lake. In December 1934, five CCC men were killed when the truck they were riding in skidded on ice on their way to church in Great Barrington, John Dow found his bride in Mill River Mary Kartiche and settled there, leaving the area only when he joined the army in World War II and saw service on various battlefronts in Europe. York Lake Company 128. @massdcr #massdcr

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