Civil Works Administration (CWA) Sites

Dalworthington Gardens (named that for its proximity to Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington) was established in 1934 as a subsistence homestead project by the Resettlement Administration: "In early 1934, the federal government allotted $250,000 to buy 593.3 acres of land south of Arkansas Lane near Arlington, Texas.  It would contain 80 sites for development (U.S. Plat and Dedication).  In June of that year, Civil Works Administration workers arrived to remove all fences and clear out the woods except in the extreme south end of the project.  On July 13, a local contractor, F.A. Mote was awarded the contract to build the...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) constructed this dam in 1934.

The Seattle Park Department utilized funds and labor from the Civil Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration, as well as the state-based Washington Emergency Relief Administration, to complete a series of maintenance and improvement projects at David Rodgers Park. The 8.5-acre park occupies a steep and heavily wooded hillside in Seattle's North Queen Anne neighborhood. The city was gifted the northern half of the park in 1883 and purchased the southern half of the park in 1909. In 1910, the city constructed a couple of paths through the park, followed by the installation of a small wood-frame comfort station...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) worked to improve the 1921 David Street Fire Station, also known as Fire Department Station 1, in Casper, Wyoming. Cassity: "The beautiful, but already aging, David Street Fire Station in Casper gained its share of attention when workers painted and applied a calcimine, chalky solution to the walls and ceilings."

Davis College, a building on the University of South Carolina campus in Columbia, South Carolina, presently houses the school's College of Library and Information Science. The building was improved with New Deal funds. The school's building history page states: "In 1934 a Civil Works Administration grant paid for repairs to LeConte, Davis, Sloan, Rutledge, and DeSaussure colleges and other buildings." Davis College is located south of Gibbes Green and the McKissick Museum.

"When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used landscape and park projects to provide relief and hope for America. The second great period of park building occurred during this ten year period when the CWA and WPA work teams focused much of their attention on our "City Park" building the Rose Garden, bathhouse, wading pool, bandstand, and the stone armory, now known as Fort Decatur Recreation Center." (decaturparks.com)

"Stretching back almost a century ago, the residents of Dell Rapids beat the South Dakota heat with a dip in the Big Sioux River. An historic quartzite bathhouse, built in 1934 as a Civil Works Administration project, is the only remaining monument to one of the most popular swimming beaches in the state." --City of Dell Rapids

The federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) conducted much work in and around Georgetown, South Carolina during the early years of the New Deal. The Georgetown Times wrote: "CWA workers tearing down a house on Duke Street near Broad Street found about $75 in money behind a loose brick in the chimney." The exact property is unknown to Living New Deal.

DeSaussure College, the second-oldest building on the University of South Carolina campus in Columbia, South Carolina, was improved with New Deal funds. The school's building history page states: "In 1934 a Civil Works Administration grant paid for repairs to LeConte, Davis, Sloan, Rutledge, and DeSaussure colleges and other buildings." DeSaussure College is located along the south side of the Horseshoe.

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) was developed and improved during the Great Depression with New Deal work relief funds and labor. The groundbreaking for Wayne County Airport occurred April 1929. On September 4, 1930, Wayne County Airport opens at the corner of Middlebelt Road and Wick Road in Romulus, Michigan. The Detroit City Airport improvement project began under the Civil Works Administration (CWA). "With a total appropriation of $160,000.00 the entire interior of the huge hangar was painted; underground gasoline tanks were removed to less hazardous locations; obstructions bordering on the field were repainted to conform with Bureau of Aeronautics...

The third-floor hallway at DeWitt Clinton High School contains two huge New Deal murals by Alfred Floegel, The History of the World (walls) and Constellations (ceiling). The oil on canvas murals were painted in 1934-1940. The History of the World is 5 feet 4 inches high and 194 feet long. Floegel worked on the Clinton High School murals from 1934 to 1940. In the wall mural, different eras of world history are represented in sequence, starting at the rear, proceeding up the right wall, then crossing over and proceeding down the left wall. The ceiling is uniformly done in blue and gold,...

The Dey Mansion was originally constructed in the mid-18th century and was inhabited by the Dey family until 1801, when it was sold to a private owner. According the Dey Mansion official website, "In 1930, the now defunct Passaic County Park Commission purchased the Dey Mansion, together with several barns and 55 acres of land. A plan of restoration was developed under the direction of Charles OverCornelius who was a former Associate Curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a recognized authority on early American architecture" (passaiccountynj.org). The restoration was undertaken by the Civil Works Administration (CWA), which restored...

The CWA did construction work for the Diamond School on St. Croix. “Setting door frames with concrete forms around, setting concrete forms around steel sashes, laying rib lath for roof, erecting iron columns for lean to roof preparing to pour roof”

In 1934-1935, the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania built a differential analyzer, an early type of computer. Designed by Oscar Schuck, it was the second of its kind – the first differential analyzer was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1931. Funds and skilled labor (for example, electricians and instrument makers) came from the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). A government report from Pennsylvania described the differential analyzer: “The machine weighs 3-1/2 tons. It is approximately 30 feet long, 10 feet wide and 5 feet high. It contains...

The federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) furnished the cost of labor for the construction of a dike in Hatfield, Massachusetts. The project was started Nov. 29, 1933 by the C.W.A. Grading, loaming, and seeding work continued under F.E.R.A. and was completed Sept. 15, 1034 Dozens of men were employed; the C.W.A. paid $9,203.55 for the labor and F.E.R.A. $1,245. The Town of Hatfield supplied only the cost of materials for the project, a small fraction of the total cost.

Delaware utilized substantial federal resources in developing and improving its road network during the Great Depression. Among the dozens of projects undertaken by the federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) during 1934 was the repair of dikes in New Castle. An average of 1,410 were put to work each week during 1934 as a result of the CWA's road, sidewalk, bridge, and other related infrastructure efforts in Delaware.  

Emporia Gazette: "Cottonwood Falls, June 1,—Two CWA projects in Chase county which were started earlier in theyear have been completed. One the improvement of the disposal plant for this city which was finished this week." The location and present status of the disposal plant are presently unknown to Living New Deal.

This fireproof structure replaced makeshift quarters previously occupied and that had been subjected to much criticism. Here the impounded animals could be kept in comfort until humanly destroyed or claimed (from Jessen). The local Civil Works Administration contributed $2206.10 against a total project estimate of $4627.30. The building has since been demolished.

The since-demolished Douglass and Harrison Apartments was a housing project in Newark, New Jersey. According to the Federal Writers' Project, "Construction costs (approximately $1,800,000) were reduced through the help of the city and the Civil Works Administration in grading the entire site."

When the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was launched in November 1933, the Old Dover Village Cemetery received improvements. According to community notes in the Bangor Daily News, "road grading and widening at the Dover Cemetery, and construction of a new piece of road leading to the Bassett section."

Doyle Field is a football & softball field next to a PWA built auditorium. An article in the Bangor Daily News November 14, 1933 has an article about City Manager F. D. Farnsworth submitting a request for Federal assistance to help improve the Brewer Athletic field which was then called Legion Park. Original design was for the building of a cinder track, an extensive drainage system and the leveling of the football field. The Feb. 22nd issue said that 61 men were employed, however due to cuts, hours were reduced from 24 to 40 and hourly pay cut from 50...

Now a part of the much larger Calvert Vaux Park (also still referred to as Dreier-Offerman Park), this smaller playground at Cropsey Ave. and Bay 46th St. was constructed by the Department of Parks in 1934. Mayor La Guardia attended the opening ceremony in November 1934. The press release announcing the opening described the new playground as having "a wading pool and a two-story brick field house. The sand tables, seesaws, slides and swings for small children are located on the Bay side of the building.  Apparatus for older children is located in the space adjoining Cropsey Avenue." This playground...

The Civil Workers Administration (CWA) improved a road into Clifton Basin located above the town about 4 miles. The overall length of the improved route was about a mile long and allowed a smoother, less steep, and less dangerous route into the National Forest lands of Clifton Basin and beyond. Presumably, part of the reason for the improved route was to make the harvesting of fuel for homes in the form of trees much more convenient. This project was awarded via the CWA as Clifton Wood Road Project 21 B1-15 in 1933.  

"In the early 1930s, though, Duke Park became one of several Durham parks that were redeveloped by the Civil Works Administration and Emergency Relief Administration of North Carolina as agents for the Federal Works Progress administration."

The Dyker Beach Golf Course first opened in 1897. It was redesigned by Jon Van Kleek in 1935-1936. On May 7, 1936, the Department of Parks announced that the Dyker Beach Golf Course had been “thoroughly reconstructed with new tees and greens throughout…with relief funds provided by the C.W.A., T.E.R.A. and W.P.A.” The renovation project was part of a larger city wide renovation of public golf courses that was funded by New Deal programs. David Owen, staff writer at The New Yorker, remarks that "Dyker is where Tiger Woods’s father, Earl, learned to play golf, in the early nineteen-seventies. (He was...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) conducted improvement work on East 10th Street in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) conducted a project involving the "grading and draining of alleys in the district south of the Pennsylvania railroad" in the east end of East Liverpool, Ohio. Work was completed in Jan. 1934.

Delaware utilized substantial federal resources in developing and improving its road network during the Great Depression. Among the dozens of projects undertaken by the federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) during 1934 was repair work in Laurel along Lindbergh Avenue, which had been a renaming of E 4th Street at the time. An average of 1,410 were put to work each week during 1934 as a result of the CWA's road, sidewalk, bridge, and other related infrastructure efforts in Delaware.  

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Civil Works Administration carried out “repairs and renewals” work at the East Hill School on St. Croix.

The Civil Works Administration conducted a street improvement project along East Lake Boulevard in Tarrant, Alabama. CWA Project No. 37-C-493: 75% completed as of Mar. 31, 1934. Work began Nov. 20, 1933.

The Civil Works Administration completed repairs and improvements at the Birmingham's East Lake Branch Library. The New Deal mural "Fairy Tale Scenes," painted by Carrie Hill, and commissioned by the Federal Art Project, is located in the children's room at the East Lake Branch Library.

In 1933 the federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) furnished the labor for the installation of four light bulbs per classroom in what was then known as the East School. The next year the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) undertook repair work in the basement of the school; repaired concrete floors; and plastered walls. Furthermore F.E.R.A. labor re-painted the school's exterior, conducted roof repairs, repointed bricks, and continued the undertaking of lighting improvements. The school was closed and demolished. West Hartford Library explains that Whiting Lane Elementary School was constructed to replace the East School in 1954. However, it was not built on...

The first East Shore highway along the Berkeley waterfront was built by the New Deal in 1933-34, with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) and relief labor from the Civil Works Administration (CWA). The PWA had financed the Bay Bridge and provide addition funds for access roads to the bridge from the East Bay, including the East Shore Highway. It was "one of the major arterials connecting with the San Francisco-East Bay Bridge," according to a Berkeley Civic Affairs Report of 1933. The WPA built the Berkeley Aquatic Park, which is formed by the causeway carrying the East Shore highway.  A...

The Civil Works Administration completed the Agriculture Building at the "East Texas fair grounds" in 1934. The location and status of this structure is currently unknown to Living New Deal.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) carried out pavement repair and other unspecified improvements to a long segment of Eastern Avenue, from Bunker Hill Road to Queens Chapel Road. This road was paved with “temporary material consisting of broken-concrete base, broken stone, and slag. These large aggregates are choked with smaller material, and an application of asphaltic cement completes the operation. This construction forms a very good temporary roadway.” The work is likely still extant, but invisible and unmarked. In 1936-1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of Eastern Avenue NE., from Rhode Island Avenue to Bladensburg...

A street and park system that runs from North to South along the beachfront property of the eastern end of Portland Maine. "During the harsh winter of 1933-1934, under MERA (Maine Emergency Relief Agency) the Federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) in Portland, in the wake of the city's earlier relief work programs, worked on the East End Beach and the Eastern Promenade, building wading pools in city playgrounds, and grading and paving city streets. The CWA shut down in April 1934, but relief work continued."   (Bauman)

The historic El Monte Clubhouse in Ogden, Utah was constructed as part of a New Deal project by Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). These agencies precede the Works Progress Administration (WPA), to which the building is sometimes attributed. "The project was started under the civil works administration and which is being finished by the ERA. The CWA and ERA organizations have appropriated $17,000 for the building against $5550 from the city." (Ogden Standard-Examiner)

A Boston Public Works Department report cited Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) labor as conducting the following work: "The Election Department building, at the corner of Broadway and Dorchester avenue, was repaired." The building is no longer extant.

In Torrington, Wyoming "the electric light system for the community was repaired by workers."

In Upton, Wyoming the Civil Works Administration (CWA) "built a power plant and installed electric lines."