Completion Year: 1937

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of the 138th Infantry Regiment Armory in St. Louis MO. Completed in 1937, the armory building has been converted to office space. Excerpt from Missouri Armories: The Guard's Home in Architecture and History: "On May 15, 1934, the City of St. Louis approved a bond issue to fund improvements; $15 million of the bond issue, plus a 30 percent grant from the PWA, made construction of the $1,347,000 armory possible... This armory is a large two-story building with a monitor-type roof over a large parade hall." The Missouri National Guard declared the building...

During the summer and fall of 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from CCC camps Belknap and Cascadia/Marys Creek developed recreational facilities at Clear Lake. Improvements at the time provided opportunities for camping, picnicking and hiking. Today, the site operates as a day use area only with trails and picnic sites available for use. The CCC laid out campsites with attached picnic facilities above the Clear Lake/Belknap Springs road that are still visible but camping is no longer permitted there. Significant CCC constructed structures that do remain in the Day Use Area include the Clear Lake Picnic shelter and Information Booth. Both...

Paradise Campground is less than a mile and a half from the McKenzie Ranger Station on the south bank of the McKenzie River. This camping area was laid-out and improved by Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from CCC Camp Belknap in 1937. When constructed it included both the current Paradise Campground and the adjacent Paradise Day Use Area. At the time, "Paradise Camp" was meant to serve as many as five-hundred campers. Today the Campground's 64 campsites serve visitors to the Willamette National Forest. The campground offers access to the McKenzie River as well.

Paradise Day Use Area is just a mile and a half from the McKenzie Ranger Station on the south bank of the McKenzie River. This picnic area was laid-out and improved by Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from CCC Camp Belknap in 1937. When constructed it included both the current day use area and the adjacent Paradise Campground. At the time, "Paradise Camp" was meant to serve as many as five-hundred campers. In addition to the picnic areas with stone fireplaces/stoves, an amphitheater is located in the day use area. The log benches with back rests, laid out in two columns of...

The Works Progress Administration built the Blaine Stadium and Fieldhouse in Ponca City OK in 1936-1937. The stadium is built with rusticated stone. It is still used by Ponca City High School football. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. According to the Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory Nomination for the Blaine Stadium, the stadium project created "wages for 32,000 man-hours of labor into the local economy, helping to revitalize the mainstreet hit hard by the decline of the oil industry and of the value of agricultural products."

In the 1936-37, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) build the stone observatory (later visitor's center) at Land's End on the western tip of Grand Mesa. It was built in the Rustic Style popular in the early 20th century, of heavy basalt stone from the mesa and rough timbers. Grand Mesa is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world, around 500 square miles in area and 10,500 high.  It is entirely within the Grand Mesa National Forest. The observatory was shuttered when we visited, but not permanently closed, we hope.

The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a grant of $49,090 for a new high school for the town of Idaho Springs, Colorado. Total cost of the school, which was constructed in 1937,  was $109,885. The school is a 2-story brick Moderne building, with two wings and distinctive horizontal window lines on the central portion of the building.  Near the entrance are glass bricks of the kind popular in the late 1930s and 1940s. The cornerstone gives no information on who built the school, just the name and date.  A cornerstone from a previous high school is laid against the wall below the...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Fowler Swimming Pool and Bathhouse in Fowler KS. Fowler was apparently hard hit by the dust storms of the 1930s, and the construction of a swimming pool would bring not only construction jobs but welcome relief from dirt and heat. Cost in 1936-1937 was $13,000, of which the town paid $3000. The pool's dedication ceremony on July 30, 1937 drew 1,000 people. The project was approved in may 1935, but construction was delayed and began in March 1936 and was completed in November 1936. According to the Kansas Historical Society, "Among 40 Kansas pools improved or...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Camp Navy-1 was created at Yorktown, Virginia, on November 1, 1935, for the purposes of improving the Naval Mine Depot (a 20-square mile area that is now called “Naval Weapons Station Yorktown”). The camp housed Company 2305, one of several African American CCC units in the area. Prior to its involvement at the Naval Mine Depot, and prior to its re-designation as “Navy-1,” the same camp was devoted to soil erosion control along the York River and along Colonial Parkway. This work was part of a larger CCC project (involving at least 4 other African American companies)...

Lead, South Dakota's striking Art Deco / Moderne Municipal Building was constructed as a Public Works Administration (PWA) project during the Great Depression, although construction is sometimes mis-attributed to the Works Progress Administration (WPA; see Lead Historic Preservation). The building "allowed the city to consolidate the various city offices, a courtroom and the fire department under one roof." The PWA provided a $31,909 grant toward the project, whose total cost was $79,165. Construction occurred between Nov. 1936 and Dec. 1937. PWA Docket No. S.D. 1042-R