10. The CCC had some alumni, who later became famous for other pursuits
Some of the men who served in the CCC became famous for reasons other than the skills acquired during the time they were enrolled. Major League baseball Hall of Famer and the hero of the St. Louis Cardinals Stan Musial was enrolled at one time in the CCC. Nor was he the only baseball star to have served, Red Schoendienst also spent time in the CCC, during which he suffered an eye injury that had a detrimental effect on his playing career, or so he later said. He and Musial were later teammates on the St. Louis Cardinals. Another athlete who worked for a time in the CCC became the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, Archie Moore, who organized boxing competitions in his camp at Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
Several actors who later achieved lasting fame worked for the CCC during harder times. Among them were Robert Mitchum, who worked as a ditch digger, and Raymond Burr, who worked planting trees and shrubs as part of the CCC’s landscape management projects. He later achieved fame portraying Perry Mason on television, as well as performing in numerous memorable movie roles. Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier, was with the CCC in 1939 and 1940. Alvin C. York, famous to history as the World War I hero Sergeant York, was a project superintendent with the CCC, directing the creation of Byrd Lake in Cumberland Mountain State Park in Tennessee.