Keyser Sites

The post office in Keyser, West Virginia was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds in 1935. The building is still in service.  The design is simple brick Modern with a flat roof and slightly recessed arch over the entry. The interior has been altered, but the elaborate old mailboxes are still there, and the floor appears to be original.

In September 1935, the Public Works Administration (PWA) allotted $41,818 for the construction of faculty homes at Potomac State College (PSC), in Keyser, West Virginia. The allotment consisted of a $23,000 loan and an $18,818 grant. The Tri-State Construction and Building Company of Ashland, Kentucky, won the bid to construct the homes, and broke ground in April 1936. In its April 24, 1936 edition, the PSC student newspaper, The Pasquino, reported that “The homes will be built on the property of the school on the site of the old golf course. Three buildings will be erected on the site. One will...

In 1935, the Public Works Administration (PWA) awarded $41,818 for the construction of faculty homes at Potomac State College (PSC), Keyser, West Virginia. The current Farm Shop appears to have been the "tool shed" included in the original contract for those homes. The Tri-State Construction Company was awarded the contract to build the homes, and a report in April 1936 said that, “First signs of construction on the Potomac State faculty homes here are seen with the construction of a tool shed. Mr. Gates of the Tri-State Construction Company, Ashland, Ky., is here supervising the preliminary work” (Mineral Daily News and...

Potomac State College (PSC) in Keyser, West Virginia, received a great deal of aid from the New Deal’s National Youth Administration (NYA). As early as October 1935, 45 PSC students were in the NYA program (34 men and 11 women), with their financial assistance ranging from "thirty dollars, the lowest amount allotted any individual a term, to one hundred dollars" (The Pasquino, 10-9-1935). A year later, with NYA enrollment growing to over 50 students, Ernest E. Church, the president of PSC, summarized the arrangement: "The whole N.Y.A. program is to assist worthy students to secure a college education by providing necessary...

Work on Stayman Field began in December 1932 (before the New Deal) with funding from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). The initial construction was completed in November 1933. The stadium was named after Joseph W. Stayman, the president of Potomac State College from 1921 to 1936. In December 1933, it was reported that a crew of workers from the New Deal’s Civil Works Administration (CWA) had begun work on the expansion of Stayman Field, from its original “450 feet, by 270, to a long rectangle of 700 feet” (The Pasquino, 12-12-1933). The expansion facilitated better maintenance for the football field, and...

In April 1936, C.S. Liller, the janitor at Potomac State College (PSC), and three enrollees of the National Youth Administration (NYA), John Bright, Edward Furlong, and Joe Dickel, began planting larch and evergreen trees on the “Mineral Street slope of the Potomac Campus” (The Pasquino, April 24, 1936).  The president of the college, Joseph W. Stayman, contributed to the project, too, by driving the NYA men to Backbone Mountain to acquire more trees. Later in 1936, NYA students planted 15 sugar maple trees between the men’s and women’s dorms (Reynolds and Davis halls). This time, they were joined by Dr. Robert...