Completion Year: 1942

The Old Fullerton City Hall (now the Fullerton Police Department) was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939. It was completed over a 3 year span and cost over $130,000.  The building was built in a Spanish Colonial Revival architectural style. Key characteristics include its central 3-story tower and cupola. Decoratively, it has beautiful terra cotta and ceramic tile work throughout the building and extensive iron wrought elements. It’s a stunning example of New Deal architecture. Additionally, the former Fullerton City Hall houses a large 3-wall mural named the “History of Southern California” by Helen Lundeberg.  A new city hall was...

Grevillea park is graced by an gargantuan mosaic mural, called "History of Transportation."  This extraordinary mural is 8 feet high and 240 feet long, composed of 60 panels. It is made of cast concrete and terrazzo paneled walls.  It is the largest petrachrome mural in the world and one of the last examples of petrachrome mosaic art (that is, made up of tiny stones). The mural was created by artist Helen Lundeberg with the support of the New Deal Federal Art Project in 1939-42.  (The FAP was part of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA). Originally installed in the nearby Centinela Park,...

A wooden bas-relief hangs at the south end of the post office lobby (slightly marred by the presence of a security camera). Lulu Braghetta completed this 10' x 3.5' carved and painted wooden sculpture, "The Wealth of Sutter County," in 1942 for the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. 

The painted, glazed ceramic tile mural titled "Grape Harvest" was made for the interior of the post office in 1942 by Henry Varnum Poor under the auspices of the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked at Mount Diablo State Park for nine years, 1933-1942. Along with such notable features as the Summit Building, campgrounds and picnic areas (see linked project pages), the CCC 'boys' made many other improvements to the park.  These include hiking trails, entrance gates, retaining walls, drinking fountains, comfort stations, turn-outs and observation areas, residences for park staff, barracks for fire crews, a mess hall and other service buildings, and a water supply system.  The State Parks Department is quite cognizant of its debt to the New Deal for improving all the parks existing in the 1930s, as noted...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was present in the newly-minted Death Valley National Monument  from 1933 to 1942.   At the time, Death Valley had almost no developed roads or other infrastructure.  So the CCC ‘boys’ laid out the basic road system, grading over 500 miles (800 km) of roads.  Most of the modern roads in the park are, therefore, paved and improved versions of CCC roads.    The CCC also built roads and trails to points of scenic interest, such as Ubehebe crater, Artists' Palette and Golden Canyon.  The longest and highest trail was to Telescope Peak in the Panamint Mountains...

Beniamino Bufano created two sculptures for the Maritime Museum in 1942 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project. "Seal" is a red granite sculpture, and "Animal" a black one.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) set up five camps in the East Bay hills, starting in 1933-34 and carrying on until 1942.  From those camps, the "CCC boys" set out into the newly-created East Bay regional parks to do a wide range of improvements, such as clearing brush, planting trees, building roads and trails, and laying out picnic areas. The first camp was set up at Wildcat Canyon at the present site of the Tilden Environmental Education (Nature) Center.  About 3,500 young men rotated through Camp Wildcat Canyon.  As Eugene Swartling, who supervised the camp, recalls, "these young men were not being...