Completion Year: 1937

In 1934, 100 State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA) laborers went to work making a number of improvements to the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, CA. SERA laborers redecked the pier in order to solve the issue of women's high heels slipping through the previous decking. They also added and painted 25 benches to the pier, repaired and painted pipe railings, and painted light fixtures. Additionally, 38 lockers and storerooms were constructed for boats. In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) added markings to the boat storage spaces to make them more identifiable. The WPA also painted the iron work...

Construction on the Vert Memorial Community Building and Museum, now known as the Vert Auditorium, began in 1936 with a donation from the estate of Pendleton residents John and Jesse Vert, funds from the Public Works Administration (PWA), and matching school district bonds. It opened for use as a public auditorium, museum and meeting rooms in 1937. "The Vert," as it is also known, is the eastern building in the three-part Pendleton City Hall Complex. Planning for the Vert Memorial Community Building began almost ten years earlier when John Vert donated funds in honor of his wife Jesse, an active member...

During the summer of 1937, enrollees from Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Coverdale, housed at the side camp in Billy Meadows, constructed a guard station. In this remote area of the Wallowa National Forest, the Billy Meadows Guard Station was intended to provide housing for work crews and fire patrols as well as serve as office and work space for forest service employees. On the approximately three acre site, the CCC enrollees built a residence, garage, warehouse, oil and gas house, and barn as required for contemporary management practices. Gail Throop, in a National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for...

In 1937, Claribel Gaffney created a sculpture fountain for the Ruth Home in El Monte, CA. She received funding from Federal Art Project (FAP). It is presumed lost. The Pacific Protective Society’s Ruth Home provided housing, treatment, and schooling to girls and babies infected with gonorrhea.

The New Deal constructed new flood control walls along the Truckee River in the heart of Reno, Nevada, in 1937.  This work came on the heels of the destructive flood of 1928. According to a history panel along the river at Virginia Street, some of the walls were done by the relief workers of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The panel shows rock walls under construction in one stretch and a remnant rock wall near the Virginia Street bridge. But we think that the massive concrete flood walls in front of the Old Main Post Office, topped by a balustrade matching the...

Ben Cunningham painted a mural on the ceiling of the Reno, Nevada post office and federal building in 1937. The local postmaster ordered it painted over soon thereafter and any depiction of it has been lost. It is unknown why the postmaster destroyed the mural, but it might have been controversial content. An outraged local painter called it, "the most beautiful ceiling I ever saw." There is an historical panel on the mural and its destruction in the former main post office, which was sold, renovated and leased for offices and shops in the 2000s.

The current Pendleton City Hall, Library and Municipal Court occupy a Public Works Administration (PWA) funded structure built in 1936-1937. When opened in February 1937, it served the community as its junior high school. To decorate its interior space, New Deal funds supported artists' work on a mural for the school's library. Over the years several changes took place in this central part of the three civic buildings. Additions extended the eastern and western portions of the school in 1942, 1946 and 1956. After this last renovation, the Pendleton Junior HIgh School name was changed to Helen McClune Junior High in...

When the Public Works Administration (PWA) approved Pendleton's request for funds to support construction of the Vert Auditorium and Helen McCune Junior High School in 1936, the school's gymnasium completed the proposed complex of three buildings. The LaGrande Observer summarized its size and significance, reporting: "A gymnasium for Pendleton with a seating capacity of more than 1,200, of which 1,000 would be on the main floor and 208 in the balcony, has been planned in connection with the proposed Vert Memorial and auditorium, plans drawn by the architects, Jones and Marsh show." The Jones and Marsh referred to above were prominent Portland...

What is now called Scottsburg Elementary School, part of Scott County School District #2, was built in 1937 as a joint elementary school for the Town of Scottsburg and Vienna Township. The start of the project appears to have straddled a change in agency nomenclature, since the January 1936 notice of bond sale names the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works while a March 1936 item about the appointment of a building inspector names the Public Works Administration as a funding source.

In 1936, with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) in support of a memorial donation by wealthy Pendleton resident John Vert and a school district bond, construction began on the three buildings that make up today's Pendleton City Hall complex. From east to west, these include the Vert Auditorium and Museum, the Pendleton City Hall and library (built as the Helen McCune Junior High), and the Recreation Center (formerly the junior high's gymnasium). Although each is detached, the three are integrated stylistically. Announcement of the grand opening of the buildings came in early 1937. The East Oregonian proclaimed with an...