CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District

The CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District, located near Jessieville in Garland County, consists of two small stone and concrete structures originally constructed to store powder and blasting caps for use by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 2007.

Civilian Conservation Corps Company 3767 was established on June 1, 1935, in Warrensburg, Missouri, and moved to Jessieville on July 8, 1935. The company built the powder magazine and blasting cap magazine to store explosives for use on road and bridge construction or conservation projects within the Ouachita National Forest. Company 3767 was transferred to Camp Hollis in Perry County in December 1936.

The powder magazine is the larger of the two buildings. The rectangular magazine is about five feet high with a four-inch-thick concrete top and a concrete floor, and its cut-stone and concrete walls are about one foot thick. In addition, there is a protruding, wraparound stone wall on the eastern side of the structure. The square blasting cap magazine is smaller, though built of similar materials. It also features a wraparound stone wall that, in both structures, may have served to shield any internal explosions.

Though they are of simple, functional design, the structures in the Civilian Conservation Corps Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District remain significant by virtue of their association with the contributions to American social history made by the CCC and through their associations with the emphasis on conservation that was part of the original mandate of the CCC.

They are also noteworthy because of their unusual design. The wraparound walls on the eastern sides of both structures may be unique to these buildings among all of the explosives-storage structures erected by the CCC within the Ouachita National Forest; there are no other known buildings that share this characteristic.

For additional information:
Arkansas CCC District, Seventh Corps Area. “Official Annual Arkansas District Civilian Conservation Corps, Seventh Corps Area.” Little Rock: District Headquarters, 1937.

“CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District.” National Register of Historic Places nomination form. On file at Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. Online at http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/National-Register-Listings/PDF/GA0246.nr.pdf (accessed November 9, 2020).

Mark K. Christ
Arkansas Historic Preservation Program