The Great Smokies are scenic, diverse, and culturally rich, with rugged topography that creates a variety of species found in few other places in North America and a human heritage that includes the Cherokee, decades of mountain culture, and a unique national park story. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is best experienced beyond the car, on trails and at historic sites within its sanctuary. Nature forged the Great Smokies, but Civilian Conservation Corps workers helped shape the park known today. During the 1930s, as many as 4,300 men worked there building roads, campgrounds, trails, and buildings, rearing fish for stocking, fighting fires, and practicing many other trades. Their work remains an important part of the park. The Civilian Conservation Corps, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 as the first of several federal job programs intended to lift the nation out of the Great Depression, employed three million men, most of them between 18 and 25 years old, and Roosevelt said their work had moral and spiritual value for both the participants and the country.