In the Ozark National Forest, just west of Fayetteville, cabins at Lake Wedington Recreation Area have been standing since the days of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s. But time — and a few Arkansas storms — have taken their toll on these structures. Now, generations of workers and partner organizations are coming together to help bring them back to life on a rainy day in early May.
On the roof of Cabin 7, 17-year-old Cameron Hults carefully balances as he nails in new shingles.
“Pretty much restoring it, I guess, because there was a leak in it before, and we're putting plywood on top and shingles and all that other stuff,” Hults said.
He’s not a professional carpenter — yet. Hults is a student with Job Corps, a Department of Labor vocational training program. There are Job Corps centers across the country, but the Cass Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center near Ozark is unique because officials collaborate with the U.S. Forest Service to run the operations.
That partnership enables jobs like the one at Lake Wedington. Restoring these CCC-era cabins allows Job Corps members, like Hults, to expand their skill set and gain valuable on-site training. He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. Now, through the Job Corps program, he’s learning a trade — and finding his footing.
“At first I wanted to do welding, but then, uh, I kind of grew towards carpentry after I job shadowed,” he said. “It was, it was kind of a little bit of... It was the people, a little bit of it was the trade, because I figured I would use this for literally anything, and it's really useful. I've used a lot of it outside of here.”
The driving force behind the Lake Wedington cabin renovations, however, is a nonprofit called Historicorps.
“Historicorp is really based on the idea of taking volunteers into public lands to do preservation work,” said Ryan Prochaska, a project supervisor with Historicorps. “So there's this relationship with Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, and we go out, they know about us. They find out about us. And, you know, we can come and do a lot of things contractors can't.”
He said one of the benefits of the organization is that they utilize volunteers, which lowers expenses.
“So we come in and we try to get as much work done as possible in the time we've got. This project, for example, is four weeks, and the big things are making sure we get the roof done and the chimneys flashed, and we have a number of other little carpentry projects to work on that we're all trying to do in line with the historic preservation standards — historic buildings,” he said.
Generally, the organization recruits volunteers from across the nation to work on job sites, but mostly locals from northwest Arkansas and surrounding regions showed up at Lake Wedington.
Prochaska said the cabins’ renovation is a collaboration with Job Corps that offers a rare opportunity for participants. Younger Job Corps students and older Historicorps volunteers work side by side, passing down tools and knowledge.
“A lot of our volunteers are in their retirement age. They've got the time and the resources to come out and do these kinds of things for a week or longer, and they're often very self-motivated,” he said. “And these students are obviously motivated enough to get into– do the Job Corps process and learn their craft skills, but they're still learning kind of what that looks like in the field. So that's a difference, and that's one of the reasons we like having our volunteers and our students together — so they can see how the volunteers are very self-motivated and getting out there. And we have to push the students a little bit along, but that's just– that's just gaining and developing experience. Absolutely.”
For the Job Corps students, this is more than a volunteer project. It’s a stepping stone toward a career, enabling young people to discover where their talents and passions align. Larry Flynn directs the Cass Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center near Ozark, one of only 24 Forest Service-affiliated centers in the country.
“It's for youths 16 to 24. You can stay on the center for two years. Learn– if you haven't completed high school, you can get a high school diploma, you can get your driver's license, and you can get certified in a trade. And we want all the students to have all three of those before they leave. That's our goal,” Flynn said. “It's the whole person concept. We want to prepare you socially. We want to prepare you for work. We want to make sure that all your medical needs are met and just make sure that everybody is just 100% totally prepared when they graduate.”
Job Corps participants at the Cass Center live on campus for two years.
“We have a campus. We have dormitories, and the students live on center,” Flynn said. “We have recreational activities for them on the weekend. We provide medical, dental, vision — all those needs that they need for their self-health. And the dorms — it's just like a college dorm. You have a couple of people per room, but there are rules, and we have rules that they all have to abide by, and they know it.
“So it's our Job Corps way of life, that they have to adapt to our center rules in order to complete the program. We can't have people just making up their own rules. We have to have set procedures. Their training day goes from eight in the morning till four in the afternoon, and they have eight training periods, and then they have a lunch period in the afternoon. But it's just like a regular college campus. But they actually get to live on site.”
Flynn said students get hands-on training in trades like carpentry and welding — and even firefighting. Some go on to work for the Forest Service itself.
“As everybody knows, the Forest Service — one of their main branches is firefighting,” he said. “So we train our students to work with... we have a fire cadre on the campus, and we train students to actually go out on fire sites. And they might not be fighting the fire — some do. They have to pass a rigid test if they're going to actually be fighting the fires.
“But we also send other students out for — it's called camp crews — whether it's cleaning up the campsite, working in a warehouse, having a more mobile dining hall to feed the firefighters. So it's great because we get to work with the Forest Service one-on-one. And it's a partnership. We need partnerships with our community — our local community. But we also need our partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, because that's who we respond to. It's a great opportunity for the students.
“So, I mean, they can go to another Job Corps center or contract center that isn't a Forest Service [center]. But I think this is an advantage to all the students, because not only do you get to learn their trade, they can go out on fire assignments. And they really like the fire assignments because they make a lot of money on them.”
Back on the cabin roof, Hults and his team scramble to cover their work with tarps as the sky opens up. This won’t be the last rain they see — but thanks to their efforts, the cabins might weather a few more decades of storms.
For Hults and for the Job Corps, this project is about more than preservation. It’s about second chances — and building something that lasts.
“It makes me happy that I'm fixing my life, pretty much, and learning something, because I was really bad in school, and this place pretty much just turned me around, put me on the right path,” Hults said.
