As we celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, the America250 initiative invites us to look beyond the obvious landmarks and honor the workers who shaped landscapes long before they became recreation areas. At Cottonwood Cove Resort, a proud member of the Adventures Unbound family, we are recognizing the Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees who rehabilitated the Nevada desert that surrounds Lake Mohave, laying the groundwork for the recreation paradise visitors enjoy today.

Taming the Range Before the Lake

Lake Mohave did not exist until Davis Dam was completed in 1951, well after the CCC era ended in 1942. But the desert landscape surrounding Cottonwood Cove tells a deeper story. In the 1930s, Nevada had the largest public domain of any state, and 26 CCC grazing camps operated across the state to rehabilitate overgrazed and eroded rangelands. Nearly 31,000 men served in 59 CCC camps statewide, many of them young men from eastern cities sent west to heal a battered landscape.

These CCC enrollees built thousands of miles of “truck trails” through the desert, constructed reservoirs and spring improvements, and worked with the Soil Conservation Service to control erosion along Nevada’s waterways. Division of Grazing officials called the truck trail network “the daddy of them all” for opening up vast stretches of previously inaccessible public land. In Clark County, where Cottonwood Cove sits, CCC crews rehabilitated rangeland ecosystems and improved desert watersheds that would later become part of the expanded Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

When the NRA expanded to include Lake Mohave in 1947, the CCC’s desert rehabilitation work had already preserved the ecological health of the surrounding landscape. The roads and improved range infrastructure they left behind became the foundation for the marina, docks, and boat ramps that arrived during the NPS Mission 66 program in the late 1950s.

Desert Conservation You Can See

Today, when you drive the road to Cottonwood Cove and look out across the desert hills rolling down to Lake Mohave, you are seeing a landscape the CCC helped save. The healthy desert ecosystem, the accessible terrain, the very roads that bring you to the water all carry the legacy of corps members who worked this land decades before the lake existed.

To learn more about how we are celebrating the diverse stories behind America’s national heritage, visit America250 at Adventures Unbound.