The Civilian Conservation Corps was born of the anguish of the Great Depression.
With 25 percent of American workers unemployed, the nation desperately needed a force to fight against poverty.
In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt marched in with the CCC.
The Corps helped to make the rolling hills and hollows of the Shawnee National Forest what they are today.
Emily Sunblade won first prize for "Exploring the Cache River" in the Student Slideshow Category at the 2009 Illinois Press Photographer Association.
Listen to Curt Carter, Cache River Environmental Educator, tell the story of the Cypress Tree and how early settlers traveled through the Cache River to settle their homes.
On the floor of his red Toyota Tercel, among a Frito Lay corn chip bag, a discarded Carbondale Times and a crushed Pepsi can lies Jim Jung’s livelihood. The golden cover of his nature almanac, The Waterman & Hill-Traveller’s Companion, peeks out from under the rubbish...
"Long time we travel on way to new land. People feel bad when they leave Old Nation. Womens cry and make sad wails. Children cry and many men cry, and all look sad like when friends die, but they say nothing and just put their heads down and keep on go towards West. Many days pass and people die very much. Looks like maybe all be dead before we get to new Indian country, but always we keep marching on. People sometimes say I look like I never smile, never laugh in lifetime."
(Excerpted from T. Wilkins's "Cherokee Tragedy", excluding Wilkins's commentary)
For an entire summer in 1994 John O’Dell and three friends spent two days a week in the Shawnee National Forest, hauling backpacks filled with hand-painted diamond-shaped signs, nailing them to trees and posts to carve out a path across southern Illinois.
In the fifteen years since, hikers have been drawn to the Shawnee from across the globe, attracted by scenery ranging from high bluffs overlooking a lush valley of pine trees at Ferne Cliff to the mossy cool of the cascading waters at Burden Falls. Perhaps nobody has done more to advance southern Illinois as a hiking destination than O’Dell, the founder of the River to River Trail Society.
It is easy to picture early settlers to southern Illinois gathered around their campfires trying to imagine how this land came to be so geologically diverse.
“I wonder what people think about when they come down here from Chicago to vacation, or even people who have lived here all their life; what they think about the rich, geological history that maybe we take for granted, because it is unique,” said Harvey Henson, assistant dean for the College of Science and a geophysicist with the Department of Geology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
The Shawnee National Forest is an area rich with nature and history.
This time line explores the area of before the Shawnee National Forest was created, exploration of important formations, and what is in the forest today.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was born of the anguish of the Great Depression.
With 25 percent of American workers unemployed, the nation desperately needed a force to fight against poverty.
In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt marched in with the CCC.
The Corps helped to make the rolling hills and hollows of the Shawnee National Forest what they are today.
Emily Sunblade won first prize for "Exploring the Cache River" in the Student Slideshow Category at the 2009 Illinois Press Photographer Association.
On the floor of his red Toyota Tercel, among a Frito Lay corn chip bag, a discarded Carbondale Times and a crushed Pepsi can lies Jim Jung’s livelihood. The golden cover of his nature almanac, The Waterman & Hill-Traveller’s Companion, peeks out from under the rubbish... 
"Long time we travel on way to new land. People feel bad when they leave Old Nation. Womens cry and make sad wails. Children cry and many men cry, and all look sad like when friends die, but they say nothing and just put their heads down and keep on go towards West. Many days pass and people die very much. Looks like maybe all be dead before we get to new Indian country, but always we keep marching on. People sometimes say I look like I never smile, never laugh in lifetime."
For an entire summer in 1994 John O’Dell and three friends spent two days a week in the Shawnee National Forest, hauling backpacks filled with hand-painted diamond-shaped signs, nailing them to trees and posts to carve out a path across southern Illinois.
It is easy to picture early settlers to southern Illinois gathered around their campfires trying to imagine how this land came to be so geologically diverse.
“I wonder what people think about when they come down here from Chicago to vacation, or even people who have lived here all their life; what they think about the rich, geological history that maybe we take for granted, because it is unique,” said Harvey Henson, assistant dean for the College of Science and a geophysicist with the Department of Geology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. 
The Shawnee National Forest is an area rich with nature and history.