The Civilian Conservation Corps was a federal relief program from 1933 to 1942 that gave jobless men work renovating abused lands. In South Dakota, the Army built 48 two-hundred-man camps and provided food, clothing, medical care, pay, and programs of education, recreation, and religion for 23,709 enrollees, single men aged 17 to 25 who sent $25 of their $30 wage to their families, as well as war veterans. Another 2,834 men supervised camps and work projects, and the Office of Indian Affairs operated smaller units for 4,554 American Indians. Camp LaCreek was part of a national CCC program to develop waterfowl refuges. Supervised by the Bureau of Biological Survey, the CCC and WPA developed 9,302 acres of LaCreek National Wildlife Refuge from a natural marsh and several ranches. They built levees, roads, boundary fence, and an observation tower, and planted shrubs, trees, marsh plants, and small grains, creating 11 pools with water, food, and cover for wildlife. Today the 16,410 acres provide habitat for 250 species of birds and 50 other animals, including thousands of waterfowl, pelicans, 250 trumpeter swans in winter, migrating birds that rest there twice a year, white-tailed and mule deer, ring-necked pheasants, sharp-tailed grouse, and many fur-bearing animals.