John Wesley (Wes) White was born June 21, 1909, in Rockton, Wisconsin. In 1934, he began his career in the U.S. Forest Service as a compassman for land surveyors at the Nicolet National Forest in northeastern Wisconsin. Subsequently, White became a surveyor and later a land acquisition agent for the Nicolet National Forest and the Superior National Forest In Duluth, Minnesota. During World War II White worked with land engineers on various projects. In 1945, he returned to his career in the Forest Service and was employed at the Superior National Forest until his retirement in 1965. In 1975 White began to write and collect reminiscences about the CCC and the Forest Service work from 1934 to 1942 in the Nicolet National Forest.
The Nicolet National Forest had its beginnings in 1928 when the Wisconsin Commercial Forestry Conference endorsed a national forest in Wisconsin. On December 12, 1928, the National Forest Reservation Commission approved the Oneida Purchase Unit which consisted of 151,680 acres In Oneida., Forest, and Vilas counties. A major part of the land was purchased under the Week's Law of 1911 which enabled the government to purchase lands necessary for protecting the flow of navigable streams. A Forest Service office was established at Park Falls in 1929. An addition of 68,000 acres was approved by the National Forest Reservation Commission on March 10, 1932, and at the same time the Oconto, Mondeaux, and Chequamegon Units were established.
On March 2, 1933, a proclamation changed the name of the Oneida Purchase Unit to Argonne and designated the acreage Nicolet National Forest for French explorer Jean Nicolet. The Nicolet National Forest was dedicated June 11, 1933, and in November 1933, the Argonne, Oconto, and Mondeaux Units officially became the Nicolet National Forest. The Chequamegon National Forest, with the units of Flambeau and Mogauh, was established at the same time in northwestern Wisconsin. In 1934 the Mondeaux (later called Medford) Unit was transferred to the Chequamegon. The Nicolet National Forest later assumed additional acres and the units of Florence, Phelps, and Peshtigo.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), an unemployment relief program established in 1933 by the 73rd Congress during the “100 days” of New Deal legislation, was instrumental in the development of the Nicolet National Forest. The camps were supervised by the Forest Service; their organization consisted of a camp superintendent, foresters, construction foremen, technical advisors, surveyors, and compassmen. The CCC workers in the Nicolet National Forest performed a wide variety of tasks. Generally, their work included roadside cleanup, stream improvement, truck trail surveys, acquisition surveys, hazard reduction, nursery development and maintenance, landscaping, recreational developments, forest planting and seeding, fish and wildlife habitat improvement, and construction of roads, ranger stations, lookout towers, telephone lines, and the Mondeaux Dam. The camps were abolished in 1942.
