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Did at his home of heart complications.Masonry mentors share their trade
November 9, 1998
By Morgan Simmons, News-Sentinel staff writer
JAMESTOWN, Tenn. -- During the Great
Depression, David Hassler and Oscar Odum were
among a small army of Tennessee farm boys sent
by the Civilian Conservation Corp to build Pickett
State Park.Home was 1471 Company, one of two CCC camps
located inside the park's 11,700 acres on the
Cumberland Plateau.Military discipline was the order of the day.
Corp members were held to strict standards of
courtesy.They wore uniforms, and they kept their barracks
clean.During their stint in the CCC -- Odum served from
1938 to 1939, Hassler from 1939 to 1940 -- both
men became stone masons, building the walls and
rustic cabins at Pickett out of native sandstone, the
same rock that forms the park's numerous caves,
natural bridges and Indian rock houses.Last week, the Tennessee Division of Parks and
Recreation rounded up some of the surviving CCC
workers and brought them back to Pickett State
Park to help teach two teams of AmeriCorp workers
-- the modern-day equivalent of the CCC -- the art of
stone masonry.During the morning session Odum, 81, and Hassler,
79, took the group on a tour inside Cabin 2, which
is the first of five cabins built by CCC workers at
Pickett State Park."We'd be carrying rock one day, and the next day
dragging telephone lines through the woods or
blazing a trail," Hassler told the packed room."And if you didn't behave, you got kitchen duty."
"I went to masonry school here in the park," Odum
said."After the first day, they had me building a fireplace
in the lodge."You learned by doing."
Over the next six weeks, the two AmeriCorp teams
--whose members range in age from 18 to 24 -- will
tackle a host of maintenance projects at both
Pickett and Fall Creek Falls state parks.At Pickett, their work will include repairing trails and
building boardwalks and fences to protect an
endangered plant species found in the park.One of their main goals will be to restore some of
the CCC features as faithfully as they can, which
means replacing several stone walls and patios in
the park, and building furniture in the CCC style to
go inside the park's rustic cabins.But as much as practical advice on cutting and
laying stone -- "The size of the hammer isn't
important, it's how you swing it," Odum would tell
the group -- the two men shared their memories of
60 years ago, when the CCC taught them a trade
and helped feed their families."Every month $22 from our paycheck was
automatically sent back home, and we got to keep
$8," Hassler said."Our families looked forward to that money."
"During the Depression years all the people up here
were poor, but you didn't know it 'cause everybody
else was, too," Odum said.The CCC accepted young men between the ages of
17 and 23 who had not held a job for at least three
months.Odum and Hassler said if it hadn't been for the
CCC, they would have had to hop trains in search of
work like so many of their friends.Both men said that about 90 percent of the CCC
workers who worked at Pickett are now dead,
having either been killed during World War II, or
succumbing to old age.They said the sandstone used in the cabin walls
was field rock collected around the park.The flat pieces of flagstone used in the floors came
from quarries -- one on Rock Creek, one near the
Wolf River east of Pickett.As far as building the park's stone structures, the
CCC boys had plenty of time."A stone mason today, if he doesn't get 200 feet
done by the end of the day, he hasn't produced,"
Hassler said."We could work at our own pace and learn as we
went along."Following the morning session, the AmeriCorp team
met outside the park's old office for a tutorial on how
to cut stone using hammer and chisel.In addition to the CCC stone masons, the group
was instructed by Craig and John Wheeler, cousins
from Jamestown who lay stone for a living.In the mid-1970s the Wheelers built stone walls and
a bathhouse at Pickett.They know -- and learned from -- some of the
surviving CCC stone masons that live in the
Jamestown area.The Wheelers said they grew up admiring the CCC
stone masons' handiwork -- not only at Pickett, but
also at state parks like Cumberland Mountain and
Montgomery Bell.When asked if the original cabins and walls
constructed by the CCC have stood the test of time,
Craig Wheeler said, "That stone will be here 'til the
end of time."Morgan Simmons may be reached at 423-521-1842 or
simmonsm@knews.com.
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