4. The camps were communities of their own
When the first CCC camps were opened they were basically tent cities resembling an army bivouac (which, since the housing was army tents erected by army reserves they were). About 200 enrollees dwelt in a given camp, operated as a company, designated by an assigned number. Camps were supervised by army officers, with a small staff of junior officers familiar with the operation of the military chain of command. They were supplemented by local employees of the Departments of the Interior or Agriculture, familiar with the requirements of the project for which the camp had been built, and responsible for its successful completion. The army ran the camps and Interior/Agriculture ran the work.
As the camps evolved, permanent wooden barrack structures replaced the tent cities, with each barracks designed to house about 50 men, divided into two 25 man sections. A leader and assistant were responsible for each section, both of whom came from within their own number. The section leader was usually a more experienced enrollee familiar with both the camp and the project, and was called the senior leader by his superiors, and usually “boss” by the members of his section under him. He was responsible for the behavior of his section, both at work and in the camp. Unwittingly (or perhaps deliberately, given the crafty mind of Franklin Roosevelt) the camps were a prep school for army life, which the draft would soon expose many CCC enrollees to, though they knew it not.