During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Federal Government created work projects to help get the economy moving, including the Civilian Conservation Corps for males ages 18 to 25. The men were assigned to camps run in a military fashion, with each camp operating as a self contained community. From 1933 until 1942, one such camp at Devil's Lake State Park included about 15 buildings, 200 CCC boys, National Park Service personnel, and U.S. Army officers. The young men worked on a variety of conservation projects and built trails and buildings, receiving a small wage plus room and board while gaining a sense of useful purpose. Their labor remains visible in several distinctive stone buildings in the park and in quartzite rock steps that still lead visitors to the tops of the bluffs above Devil's Lake.