Robert Fechner, the first director of the Civilian Conservation Corps, was honored when the Massanutten Unit of George Washington National Forest was designated the Robert Fechner Memorial Forest. In March 1933, newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced national unemployment of 25 percent and moved quickly with Congress, which passed the Emergency Conservation Work legislation on March 31, 1933. One of the programs created from this legislation would later be called the Civilian Conservation Corps, an organization intended to preserve natural resources and serve as a moral and spiritual boon to needy young Americans. Roosevelt chose Fechner, an experienced and respected labor leader, to organize and run this first New Deal agency. Although he knew little about conservation, his background in labor and industrial management gave him the administrative skills for the position, and his fairness, tact, and patience impressed Roosevelt. Under Fechner's guidance, almost 2.4 million youths worked in the CCC to rehabilitate the nation's natural resources and learn much-needed job skills. Fechner remained director until his untimely death in 1939. In 1940, the Forest Service proposed that the Massanutten Unit, including Camp Roosevelt, be established as a monument honoring his work, and the Secretary of Agriculture agreed and recommended the designation. On February 5, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the designation official by Executive Order No. 86731.