If laid end to end, those ditches could have been a canal from Bountiful to Los Angeles. Additionally, corps members stocked streams and lakes with fish, created bird refuges, cut hiking trails and created recreational areas like campgrounds and amphitheaters.

Like Schoonover, the men learned rock masonry, carpentry, heavy-equipment operation, truck driving, road construction, cooking, clerical work and other valuable job skills. Also like Schoonover, most were from out of state. Because it was a federal program, the government decided to send boys from the East, where the population was large and the public lands were small, to the West where the reverse was true. In Utah's CCC camps there were six men from the East to every one Utahn. That said, about 18,000 Utah men benefited from the program (almost 800 of whom which were American Indians) and approximately $4.2 million was sent to their families during those nine years.

Enlistments were six months long, and more than five men applied for every opening in Utah. At the end of the enlistment men could either re-enlist or go home. The average stay was 18 months.

"I graduated from high school on Thursday night and then was inducted into the camp that Friday," said Cleon Tucker of North Salt Lake who stayed in 30 months.

Tucker said he really enjoyed the camaraderie that developed among the men and said the surveying skills he learned helped him in his career as a mountain real estate land developer. One of his side-jobs in the camps was as a barber where he earned 15-cents per cut. He saved that money and used it to buy a 1931 Model A Ford for $100 when he got out.

At night in the camps, classes were taught. In the beginning, 55 percent of the men were from rural areas, 45 percent had never had a job and only 13 percent had graduated from high school. Nationally, 60 percent of the men participated in the evening classes, allowing many to earn junior high and high school diplomas. As the prospect of war grew closer, the Army began emphasizing classes that would be useful during war time such as radio operation, first aid administration, welding and engine repair.