Missoula Sites

The W.P.A. worked to develop what is now known as Missoula International Airport, in Montana. W.P.A. project info: "Develop and improve airport" Official Project Number: 165‐1‐91‐34 Total project cost: $928,324.00 Sponsor: Missoula County

The WPA allocated $18,689 for "Dornblaser athletic field improvement" at the University of Montana in Missoula. The stadium housed Montana Grizzlies football home games, and is not to be confused with the newer recreation center that bears the same name. According to Wikipedia, the site of 'old' Dornblaser Field "is now the location of the Mansfield Library."

The original Missoula post office was completed in 1913 and then expanded during the late 1920s to accommodate the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana.  A second extension and annex was made under the New Deal, which was designed by Louis A. Simon of the U.S. Treasury Department and dedicated on October 13, 1937. By that time, the structure was known as the Federal Building. The original building was constructed in the Beaux Arts style, popular in public buildings of the early 20th century, which appears to have been repeated in the 1920s. The 1930s addition was done in...

The W.P.A. conducted development work at Fort Missoula in Montana. W.P.A. project info: "Construct additions to buildings" Official Project Number: 13‐3‐91‐160 Total project cost: $103,566.00 Sponsor: War Department "Construct additions to buildings" Official Project Number: 13‐3‐91‐35 Total project cost: $125,000.00 Sponsor: War Department "Construct additions to buildings" Official Project Number: 13‐3‐91‐X Sponsor: War Department "Construct additions to buildings" Official Project Number: 13‐3‐91‐X Total project cost: $21,434.00 Sponsor: War Department "Reconstruct and improve buildings and grounds" Official Project Number: 165‐2‐91‐81 Total project cost: $72,084.00 Sponsor: Commanding Officer, Fort Missoula, U.S. Army "Reconstruct, rehabilitate, and improve buildings and grounds" Official Project Number: 565‐91‐2‐14 Total project cost: $62,711.00 Sponsor: Commanding Officer, Fort Missoula, U.S. Army "Reconstruct and improve buildings and grounds" Official Project...

McCormick Park in Missoula, Montana was developed by the Works Progess Administration (WPA) on "surplus highway land, a parcel from the American Hide and Fur Company, and land donated from the Kate McCormick estate." (Wikipedia).  The work would have been done by local relief workers made jobless by the Great Depression and paid for mostly by the federal government. McCormick Park is very much in use today and has been improved over time. We could not determine if any of the original facilities developed by the WPA are still in place.

The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funding for the Student Union building on the University of Montana campus in 1934 and the building was completed in 1936.  It is now the Fine Arts Building and houses the George & Jane Dennison Theater. According to the National Trust/ Montana Historical Society marker on the building, "Missoula architect C. J. Forbis ushered in a new campus building phase in 1935 with the construction of student union. The building’s placement and modern Art Deco façade broke ranks with the Renaissance Revival style called for in the old Carsley-Gilbert campus master plan. The old...

The Journalism Building on the University of Montana campus in Missoula, now known as Stone Hall, was constructed with Public Works Administration funding in 1936-7.  The three-story brick structure originally housed the Journalism School and the printing press of the student newspaper, the Montana Kaimin, and now is the home of the Department of Geology, the College of Forestry and Conservation and the Central and Southwest Asian Studies Center. According to the Montana Historical Society: "Dean Arthur Stone pitched four tents near the Oval in 1914, thereby founding the University’s School of Journalism. An old bicycle shed and later World War I...