During the Great Depression in the 1930s, young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps worked to survive hard times while sending paychecks home to their families. Created by Congress to provide employment, the CCC worked largely on public lands, including Sequoia National Park, where despite their youth and inexperience these workers helped develop many park features and similar projects across the nation. They built roads, trails, buildings, campgrounds, water systems, and more, much of it still in use today. After a sequoia fell across the road on December 4, 1937, CCC worker Roy DeVoe of Weldon, California, suggested cutting a drive-through tunnel in the tree, which was 275 feet long with a base diameter of 21 feet.