The arboretum lands served as campsites for Luckiamute Kalapuyans for at least 10,000 years before Euro-American settlement in the Willamette Valley. When the first Euro-Americans arrived after 1845, the landscape included a few old-growth fir, oak, big-leaf maple, alder, and madrone in the foothills and hardwood trees along the streams.
Dedicated in January 1926, Peavy Arboretum honors George W. Peavy, first Dean of the School of Forestry and later President of Oregon State College, now OSU. The arboretum continues to serve as an outdoor teaching laboratory for today’s' OSU College of Forestry, and has a rich history including ancient Native American sites and the home of the original Oregon State forest Nursery, where seedlings were raised for reforestation after the disastrous Tillamook Burn, a series of fires that devastated the northern Coast Range beginning in 1933. The arboretum was also the site of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Arboretum that operated from 1933 to 1942, and at one time included 38 buildings. By the time the camp closed in 1942, CCC enrollees had constructed trails and roads throughout the arboretum and McDonald Forest; expanded the nursery; constructed Lake Cronemiller to provide irrigation water, and participated in reforestation and fire prevention work. The Sign Shop, visible across the field from the parking lot is one of just a few remaining Camp Arboretum buildings. Peavy Arboretum now contains more than 150 plant species, and serves as a gateway to recreational opportunities in McDonald Research Forest.
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): Five days after his 1933 inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called an emergency session of Congress to install one of his most popular New Deal programs – the Civilian Conservation Corps or the CCC. The program targeted unemployed young men, veterans and American Indians hard hit by the Great Depression. The program required the enrollees to send a portion of their wages home to their parents. Enrollees also received free education, healthcare and job training. Throughout its nine-year existence, the program put millions to work on federal and state land for the prevention of forest fires, floods, and soil erosion, and plant, pest, and disease control. Nationwide, enrollees planted three billion trees and came to be known as the Tree Army. Oregon housed dozens of CCC camps.
*** IMPORTANT: This geocache has been placed by permission of McDonald Forest Recreation Manager. This area is open from dawn to dusk. No bushwhacking is required. ***