Completion Year: 1940

The middle school built in 1982 incorporates the gymnasium and other portions of the Brownstown Junior-Senior High school built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938-1940. WPA project superintendents were Earl Mings of Shelbyville, Indiana, until December 1938, followed by Virgil Crockett of Vallonia, Indiana. Mings resigned to take a position with the Public Works Administration in Chicago. Most sources name the WPA as the source of labor and/or grants. One article from a nearby city in the county indicates that the construction grant is from PWA. The cornerstone names only the WPA.

Beginning in October 1935, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) located a camp near the unincorporated town of Gibbon at Squaw Creek (Iskuulpa Creek), twenty miles east of Pendleton. As a Soil Conservation Service (SCS) camp between 1935 and 1937, Camp Squaw Creek enrollees engaged primarily in project work to stabilize the soil. Local historian Dorys Crow Grover reports that the enrollees were required to take a three-month course in soil conservation to support their work. In 1937, however, the US Forest Service took control of the CCC Camp Squaw Creek and project work changed accordingly. Under the SCS, project work included...

The Public Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration funded the construction of the Randolph County Courthouse in Pocahontas, AR in 1940. The building is designed in Classical Moderne style with brick and precast concrete facade materials. The architect of record was Eugene John Stern.

In 1938-40, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) made substantial improvements to Shoshone Falls Park. They built the road down to the park, paths and steps, and almost surely all the stone walls and handrails along the cliff overlooking the falls. They may have constructed the viewing platform lower down, as well. Shoshone Park came into existence through a donation of land (~300 acres) to the city of Twin Falls by Frederick and Martha Adams in 1932. A plaque on site commenorates that donation. Civic organizations made small improvements to the park from 1933 to 1938, at which time the city announced...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of a new county courthouse for Ada County, Idaho, in 1938-39, which is now the Capitol Annex.. The grand entry lobby and staircases are decorated with a series of two dozen murals paid for by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) under its Federal Art Project (FAP).  The murals were sketched by Ivan Bartlett of California and painted in by other FAP artists and installed in the courthouse in 1940. These artists were all unemployed due to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The murals are in the Social Realist style popular in the 1930s,...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of a new county courthouse for Ada County, Idaho, located near the state capitol building in Boise.  The building went up in 1938-39. It is now used as the Capitol Annex to house legislative offices. The grand entry lobby and staircase are decorated with a series of two dozen murals paid for by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) under its Federal Art Project (FAP).  This is the largest collection of New Deal murals in Idaho. (For a general sense of the layout of the murals, see post on the Capitol Annex). The murals are...

The New Deal built the first campus for Boise State University from 1940 to 1942.  Established in 1932, Boise Junior College lacked a permanent home until the the move to the present campus.  The centerpiece of the project was the Administration Building, constructed in 1940 with Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building housed almost all academic and administrative functions of the college, including offices, classrooms and library.  Interior spaces have acquired new uses as the campus has grown but much of the interior is intact and the exterior is generally unaltered. The structure is two stories tall, clad in red brick with...

In 1939-40, the Los Angeles County Housing Authority constructed the Carmelitos public housing project in Long Beach, CA. Partially funded by the United States Housing Authority (USHA), Carmelitos was the first public housing project in Southern California.  Between August 1939 and November 1940, 87 structures were constructed on 50 acres. These included a community building and 86 one- and two-story residences comprising 607 units total. A second phase of construction in 1943 added 47 buildings (130 units) on 14 additional acres. The concrete-and-steel and wood-and-stucco buildings were painted soft green, yellow, pink, blue and white with darker shades around the bases. In...

In 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) set up camp SC6-N across the river from Fort Stanton, New Mexico, which was a U.S. Marine Sanitorium at the time. The CCC enrollees carried out work on historic Fort Stanton, as well as soil conservation and forestry work in the region. The camp was active until 1940. "As part of the ‘New Deal’ envisioned by President Roosevelt, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was built in 1934 across the Rio Bravo from the fort. The Fort Stanton CCC employed civilians in soil conservation, forestry and women’s programs, as well as providing labor at...

The Work Projects Administration (WPA) constructed an auditorium in Monroe, Nebraska in 1940. The distinctive structure was dedicated Dec. 5, 1940.