The Cleo Redd Fisher Museum in Loudonville will offer a free lecture Monday, April 18, on the history of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

CCC historian Cyrus Moore will speak at 7 p.m., a news release said.

"The Civilian Conservation Corps began with the Emergency Conservation Work Act passed in March of 1933, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal," the museum said. "Through the program, young unemployed men between the ages of 17 and 25 were employed in projects to conserve natural resources and reverse the effects of over-farming and industrial farming that were degrading land and soil."

Mobilized by the U.S. Army and under the direction of various federal agencies, CCC projects included tree-planting, water management, road-building and constructing park infrastructure. 

"Though the program wound down and eventually ended during World War II, its legacy lives on through a multitude of public buildings in parks, vast forests of trees planted and material culture left by the hundreds of thousands of young men who served," the news release said.

One of the CCC camps, Camp Mohigan, was five miles southwest of Loudonville, the museum said.

"The camp was established in July of 1935 and comprised of members of CCC Company 1570," the news release said. "The men at Camp Mohican worked on a state forest project that in time would restore the land to what it might have looked like before settlement and farming. Their work comprised the beloved landmarks and features that still dot Mohican State Park and Forest."

Moore is the director of the Baltimore Community Museum in Baltimore, Ohio.

The Cleo Redd Fisher Museum is at 203 E. Main St. in Loudonville. For more information visit www.crfmuseum.com.