Completion Year: 1940

In 1940, Barse Miller painted a two-panel mural at the Downtown Post Office in Burbank, CA. The project was funded by the Section of Fine Arts (SFA) under the newly-created Public Buildings Administration. "This postal branch is graced by a two-panel mural saluting the city's most famous industries—filmmaking and aeronautics. Titled 'People of Burbank,' the 1940 work by Barse Miller fits in with the building's tile and wrought-iron Spanish mission motif" (Rasmussen, 1993). Barse Miller was a teacher at The ArtCenter School in Los Angeles. His other New Deal–funded works in the region include a set of four frescoes (1936) at George...

In 1939-1940, the Work Projects Administration (WPA) channelized Sausal Creek as part of creating Dimond Park.  The work consisted of building concrete walls to stop erosion, installing grade control step-downs, and putting culverts to let roads pass over the creek.   WPA stamps are still visible in places.   The work extends from the Dimond Recreation Area in the lower park up past the Leimert Street bridge, where the creek flows out of a canyon in the Oakland Hills. Channelization was a popular method of flood control in the middle of the 20th, much promoted by the Army Corps of Engineers, which...

The Fort was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Kern County in 1938-40. This unusual New Deal site is a replica of the pre-Gold Rush Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, designed by W. Francis Parsons. It was constructed of native adobe mud bricks made on site and took 83 relief workers 18 months to build.    The Fort covers nearly three acres and measures 360 feet by 200 feet, over 1,000 feet around the outside walls. The walls are 14 feet high. There are two interior courtyards with shade trees and many small offices arranged along the side walkways, which are roofed...

In 1940, the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse was rebuilt by the New Deal on the site of the original county courthouse of 1851 and a Greek Revival courthouse of 1873.  The North Wing of the 1940 courthouse was in place before the older one was demolished to make way for the rest of the new structure (see historic photo, below).  The handsome building by local architects, Walker and Eisen, is a classic example of Civic Moderne, with fine detailing and bas-reliefs on the exterior (the condition of the interior is unknown to us).  It is a large edifice that almost...

These 7'4" x 4' tufa stone busts of "Leonardo Da Vinci" and "Thomas Edison" were carved by Frederick E. Olmsted, great-nephew of famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, for the WPA exhibition "Art in Action" at the Treasure Island world's fair. They are located on the exterior of the Science Hall.

In 1939-40, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) made substantial improvements to Ellis Lake Park, which was originally designed by landscape architect John McLaren in 1924 on an old slough of the Yuba River.  It is not clear how much of the park had been developed before the WPA came in to assist the city of Marysville.  The WPA workers dredged the lake, put cobblestone rip-rap on the banks, built rock lampposts for night illumination, and installed an ornamental fountain. They also added two tennis courts, a judging stand, a 20-ft. concrete and stone bridge to an island in the lake, and a...

The original Beach School was built in 1913 but declared an earthquake hazard and torn down in 1934.  It was replaced in two phases: the main wing in 1936 and the rear classroom wing and auditorium in 1940 (PHS 2007). The new school included 8 classrooms, a kindergarten, offices, a health room and an auditorium. There had been three previous efforts to replace schools and temporary buildings at schools in Piedmont in the 1920s, but the bond issues lost.   After the school board sought and gained funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a new bond issue passed in December...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of the Veterans Boulevard approach road and tunnel to the Golden Gate Bridge (not itself a New Deal project) in 1939-40.  The roadway runs north-south across the Presidio of San Francisco, connecting Park Presidio Boulevard coming north from Golden Gate Park to Presidio Boulevard, running east-west, and on to the southern entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge.  There is an 800-foot tunnel in the mid-section of the approach road. Apparently, the original name of the roadway was Funston Avenue approach, which was changed sometime after World War II.  

Woodminster Amphitheater and Cascade is an astonishing feature of Joaquin Miller Park in the Oakland hills and one of the largest New Deal projects in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Woodminster lies just off Joaquin Miller Road above Highway 13.  The large complex was constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1935 to 1940. Initial work began in late 1935 after $128,000 in federal funding was approved for Woodminster stairway and amphiteather, as part of a million dollars WPA effort across the city of Oakland (Chronicle 1935).  Further funds and more work came with a larger disbursement of almost $700,000 for "a master...

Berkeley High School's Community Theater is adorned with cast stone bas-relief sculptures by Robert Howard, son of architect John Galen Howard.  The sculptures are on the exterior side of the building, along Allston Way and facing the Berkeley Civic Center park. The central panel is around 30 feet high and contains a rich group of figures illustrating people of all races coming together through the arts. On each side is a panel of a herald  blowing a trumpet, one male and one female, and the man is apparently African American. The panels were paid for by the Federal Arts Project of the...