Completion Year: 1943

Works Progress Administration (WPA) project cards at the National Archives show that the WPA was charged with another round of improvement of recreational facilities in the city of Washington, DC in the early 1940s.  This followed on a major program of parks improvement by the WPA in 1935-36. The approved works included: building tennis courts at Palisades Playground, Edgewood Playground, and Reservation "C" on the Mall; grading, filling, and constructing tennis courts at Turkey Thicket playground; excavating cinders from west parking area and surfacing east parking lot at Takoma Recreation Center; spreading topsoil on south field at Banneker Recreation Center; and...

The historic Carlyle post office possesses a set of three sculptures by Curt Drewes. The sculptures, entitled "Farm," "Dairy Farming," and "Fish Hatchery," were funded by the Section of Fine Arts in 1939.

The Poughkeepsie post office has five large murals on the walls depicting local scenes from the 17th to 20th centuries.  Two horizontal murals at either end of the lower lobby are views of Poughkeepsie from across the Hudson in 1839 and 1940; those are by Georgina Klitgaard and Charles Rosen, respectively. On the mezzanine floor are three murals by Gerald Foster. One depicts Pilgrims and Indians on the site of Poughkeepsie in 1692. The second shows the hamlet of Poughkeepsie in 1730 (not shown here).   The third and largest one shows delegates from New York meeting in Dutchess County to ratify...

The historic Cortland post office houses a wonderfully unique example of New Deal artwork: a painted wooden relief entitled "Valley of the Seven Hills" completed in 1943 by Ryah Ludins. The work, which was commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts, can be seen in the post office lobby to this day.

New Deal mural entitled "Farm Scene" was painted by Paul Faulkner in 1943 with funds provided by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.

Between 1936 and 1943, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook construction and landscaping projects in St. Croix State Park.   St. Croix State Park was developed through a National Parks Service program, the Recreational Demonstration Area (RDA), which aimed to convert land that could not be used for agriculture or industry into recreational space. Typically, RDAs were “located within fifty miles of a major metropolitan area and was meant to allow underprivileged children to enjoy the outdoors.” To this end, workers constructed camp units (cabins and latrines) for groups of children and for families. “CCC enrollees, along...

The Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1931 in the desert landscape of northern Nevada and eastern Oregon and enlarged by order of President Franklin Roosevelt in December 1936, under the auspices of the Bureau of Biological Survey (Fish and Wildlife Service after 1940).  It now covers 573,000 acres and is part of the Sheldon-Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which is headquartered in Oregon.  It harbors one of the last reasonably intact examples of a sagebrush-steppe ecosystem in the Great Basin and is known for its populations of bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope and wild mustangs (since removed). The Civilian...

The Brookland Education Campus at Bunker Hill, NE, encompasses the former Bunker Hill Elementary School, which was built during the New Deal era.  The new facility includes middle school. Initial plans were made in 1938 for a full, two-story building for the Bunker Hill Elementary School to replace an earlier school building, but it ended up being built in stages. A grant of $111,200 from the Public Works Administration (PWA) allowed the construction of the basement and six rooms on a single floor, which became the west wing of the school. All but some finish work was completed in 1939 and the...

The old Recorder of Deeds Building is a three-story structure built 1941-1943 by the municipal government of the District of Columbia.  Funding was provided in 1940 by the Public Works Administration (PWA), which was by then part of the Federal Works Agency (FWA). The building was designed by the Office of the Municipal Architect under Nathan C. Wyeth. Its severe Classical Moderne style echoes that of the District of Columbia Municipal Center (Herman J. Daly Building), one block east.  Both were meant to be components of a large municipal complex planned for the Judiciary Square area, but never realized. A third companion building,...

The historic branch post office in West Allis, Wisconsin houses New Deal artwork: "Wisconsin Wild Flowers – Spring" and "Wisconsin Wild Flowers – Autumn," murals completed by Frances Foy in 1943. The works were commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts.