Civil Works Administration (CWA) Sites

Formerly known as the Army War College, Fort Lesley J. McNair is a U.S. Army post located at the confluence of the Potomac and the Anacostia Rivers. The site has been an army post for more than 200 years. During the New Deal, both the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) made extensive improvements to the post. In 1933-34, the CWA did everything from sewer construction and building renovations to adding a bandstand and repairing the bowling alley. Records in the National Archives provide these details: "Building concrete coal bin & retaining walls, south of incinerator; Making necessary branch...

In 1934 several New Deal Programs provided funding and employed Fort Monroe laborers in the construction of the Fort Monroe Bandshell in Continental Park. The new bandshell replaced the previous one that had been destroyed by hurricanes in 1933. Capt. Harrington W. Cochran designed the bandshell for the 2nd Coast Artillery Band which played there for the first time in April 1934. Robert Kelly, Casemate Museum Historian at the Fort Monroe Authority, notes that Capt. Cochran's diary "documents Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Public Works Administration (PWA), and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) all either funding projects and/or providing labor for improvements across the post."

Illinois's old Fort Sheridan was improved as part of Federal Project F-87 by the federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) ca. 1933-4. "The general scope of the project covered improvements to buildings and grounds, landscaping, drainage and minor construction."

Fort Tryon Park was built during the Depression era with the goal of providing public green space for upper Manhattan. John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land and provided most of the financial support for the construction of the park’s amenities. The infrastructure within and around the park was completed with work relief labor at the cost $300,000. The work consisted of building roads, storm drainage, and lighting. It was likely completed with the aid of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), or the Temporary Emergency Relief Act (TERA) The New York City Park Department Report to August 1934 states...

The Fort Worth Botanic Garden had its origins in 1912 when the park board purchased a tract of land southwest of Trinity Park and named it Rock Springs Park. In his 1909 park master plan for Fort Worth, landscape architect George E. Kessler recommended that the city acquire the parcel because of its natural flowing springs and dense stand of native trees. The park remained largely unimproved until 1929 when work began on the creation of a lagoon and an arboretum under the direction of landscape architect S. Herbert Hare and Raymond C. Morrison, the city’s forester. In 1930 Hare and...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) carried out pavement repair and other unspecified improvements to a segment of 49th Street NE, from Central Avenue to Deane Avenue, in 1933-34.   The 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.  

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) put more than 100 men to work developing Foster Park on Spring Creek southwest of San Angelo. The 10-acre park received $11,000 in improvements made possible by the CWA. In Feb. 1934 the San Angelo Morning Times noted that work was being "completed rapidly." It is probable that the CWA constructed many of the stone facilities that still serve the park today, including picnic benches, fireplaces, and a sizable shelter.

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 construction along Foulk Road in New Castle County north of Wilmington, through Naamans Rd. to the border with Pennsylvania. 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 bridge carrying 4th St. SE across the Cedar River in Austin, Minnesota was constructed with federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) labor during the Great Depression. The stone below-span arch bridge was fortified in 2012 and is still in use today.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) lay a water main along Fourth Street SW in 1934.  At the time, the street was known as 4 1/2 street.  This was at the beginning of an extensive program of building new water mains and sewers all across the District of Columbia by New Deal agencies.

According to a 1935 report of the New Hampshire Forestry Commission, the New Deal assisted in the initial development of the Caroline A. Fox Research and Demonstration Forest (Fox Forest) which has been the State of New Hampshire’s forest research station since 1933. The forest was a gift to New Hampshire from Miss Caroline Fox of Arlington, Massachusetts. Miss Fox spent her summers on the property and had an interest in forest management issues. Presently the forest contains 1,445 acres, the Henry I. Baldwin Forestry Education Center and a farm house/office. Fox Forest Research Research has been focused in two...

"The Civil Works Administration (CWA) spent nearly eighteen hundred dollars building and remodeling privies at white and African American schools throughout the county in the 1930s."

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) conducted improvement work: "repainting and papering" at what was the Franklin Fire Company on Park Street in Towanda, Pennsylvania.

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 construction at the Frederica Causeway, including road paving and the installation of guard rails. 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.  

In 1934, the CWA performed repairs and improvements to the Frederiksted Public Grammar School.

Fremont Lake, north of Pinedale, Wyoming, is a large natural lake created by glacial scouring and a terminal moraine that has been expanded by the construction of modern dams.  Today, the lake is about 12 miles long and 1/2 mile wide.  It lies entirely within the Bridger-Teton National Forest. In the 1930s, a concrete and rubble stone dam was built that raised the level of the lake by 2 feet.  Relief workers from the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) participated in the construction of that dam. We do not know exactly which years the work was done. A...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Public Works Administration (PWA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded pre-construction work, buildings, and landscaping as part of the Fullerton Junior College project.  Fullerton Junior College was founded in 1913 and originally shared a campus with Fullerton Union High School. The junior college provided high school graduates with a two-year program. In 1934, the CWA funded the clearing of a lot just east of the high school to prepare for a new campus for the junior college.  The campus was designed by architect Harry K. Vaughn in a Spanish Revival style. The plan was to...

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Civil Works Administration completed improvements at the Gallinger Playground in Washington DC, between 1933 and 1934. The work consisted of the following improvements: “New shelter(s) built."

The Garfield Playground was one of a limited number of Seattle park facilities to receive upgrades through the New Deal's Civil Works Administration (CWA) program. The main CWA project at the playground involved the construction of a retaining wall along the western edge of the property. CWA laborers began work on the $12,000 project in 1933 and completed it the following year. Several years later, funding from the Works Project Administration (WPA) allowed the Park Department to proceed with additional improvements to the playground. In 1938, WPA workers painted the baseball field's backstop and bleachers. One year later, they built three...

The New Deal vastly improved Yosemite National Park in California, which has long been the showpiece of the national park system.  Several federal agencies operated in the park from 1933 to 1942, under the general supervision of the National Park Service: the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Public Works Administration (PWA), and Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), plus the short-lived Civil Works Administration (CWA)  (December 1933 to April 1934). Major works around Yosemite are detailed in the various site pages listed on the right. Nevertheless, some of the immense amount of work done during the New Deal cannot be pinpointed, so we...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) conducted a sewer project on George Street in York, Pennsylvania.

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Civil Works Administration carried out “repairs and renewals” work at the George Washington School (renamed Evelyn Marcelli Elementary School, closed in 2012) on St. Thomas.

The George Wright Clubhouse is a facility part of a municipal golf course located in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, MA. The course was designed by Donald Ross and named for George Wright, one of the original members of the Cincinnati Red Stockings professional baseball team. The clubhouse was built by the Works Progress Administration. This Norman style clubhouse cost $200,000 in 1930s' dollars, the overall golf course's construction, including the clubhouse, is estimated to have been $1,000,000, in 1930s' dollars. The course opened in 1938 and remains open to this day owned and run by the City of Boston....

Numerous building construction projects on the Georgia Tech campus were enabled by various federal New Deal agencies during the Great Depression. The Civil Works Administration (CWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Public Works Administration (PWA) all contributed support to various projects, some of which are no longer extant.

"The first building built under the "Civil Works Administration" was the Naval Armory. Constructed on the site of the temporary gym that burned in 1931, the Armory Building was a "no-frills" building. The building was to serve the Atlanta Naval Reserve, the Georgia Tech Naval ROTC unit, and the Communication Reserve of the U. S. Navy. By February of 1934, the foundations were almost completed and all of the labor for this project was being supplied by the Civilian Works Administration." The building was demolished in 1980 to make way for the Edge Athletic Center building.

"The Geronimo Surrender Monument commemorates the final surrender of the famous Chiricahua Apache Chief Geronimo and the last of his band to General Nelson A. Miles on September 4, 1886. That surrender marked the end of more than 20 years of warfare between the Chiricahua Apache and American settlers and the U.S. Army. Geronimo and his fighters, along with those Chiricahua already settled on the San Carlos Reservation, were forcibly removed to a prison camp in Florida. The monument was constructed by the City of Douglas on Highway 80, then the main east-west route, as a point of interest for...

Gertrude B. Kelly Playground was one of five model playgrounds designed after Robert Moses assumed control of the New York City Parks Department in 1934. These playgrounds were "meant to serve as templates for further playground designs and included standard features such as a play house, flagpole, chlorinated footbath, wading pool, handball and basketball courts, play equipment, drinking fountains, shade trees, and shrubs." (nycgovparks) Mayor LaGuardia presided over the dedication ceremony for this playground in August, 1934. A Parks Department press release announcing the opening of this and several other playgrounds explained that "The labor and materials for the construction of...

The Girl Scout Little House at 1011 Bonnie Brae Street was constructed during the Great Depression with New Deal work relief labor. Approved as a Civil Works Administration (CWA) project, the Little House was constructed in 1934-5 and completed under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA).

"The Golden Cemetery was the site of the major community effort, in concert with the Civil Works Administration and Works Progress Administration, to beautify, modernize and reclaim the cemetery grounds. Its transformation via federal public works projects during the 1930s was part of an important pattern of events that made a significant contribution to the development of the Golden area community that has lasted to this day. While many American communities took advantage of the aid in improvements the federal public works agencies of the Great Depression had to offer, Golden was particularly aggressive in pursuing funding for numerous projects...The...

In 1934, the Civil Works Administration started building a modern sports field on January 29 due to the land donated to the city on January 25, 1934, by Oscar Goldsmith, Lawrence B. Goldsmith, Annie Schiffman Goldsmith, Robert L. Schiffman, and Elsie Strauss Schiffman for use as an athletic field or playground for white pupils of the public schools. Due to CWA changes, they could only provide 50 people to begin the project. The area was the first in Huntsville to be lit up for nighttime sporting events, and it cost the city $6,500 to build, thanks to funding from the...

This Texas state park was established to preserve a Spanish mission and commemorate historic events in Texas history. A marker at the site explains the CCC's involvement in the park's development: "Mississippi native and Goliad County Judge James Arthur White (1878-1953) possessed a fervent interest in Texas history, notably that of his adopted city of Goliad. He began in 1928 to organize support for a state park to protect Goliad's many significant historic sites. Judge White drafted a bill in 1931 to create the park and a state-funded bridge and highway (later U.S. 183). Despite the bleak financial prospects of the...

The federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) conducted repair work at Goodnow Library in 1934. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) continued the work that year: "The walls were painted, ceilings whitened, floors oiled and a fine window seat built in the juvenile room making that room much lighter and more cheerful. The books are now clean and properly classified and the town can be justly proud of the library."

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) undertook a project conducting "painting and repairs to the Good Will Fire House on South street" in New Castle, Delaware.

Gorman playground at 84th St. and 25th Ave. in the East Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens was one of five “model playgrounds” designed as templates for further playground development by Robert Moses and his team after Moses assumed control of the New York City Parks Department in 1934. According to a Department press release announcing the opening, when Gorman Playground, then named "Jackson Heights Model Playground," opened in 1934 it contained a: "Recreation building containing a large play room, lavatories, mothers room, directors' room and storage space. The rear wall of the recreation building will be used for 4 handball courts. The...

A grade school facility for Boone, NC at the corner of what was then the intersection of Locust Street and College Street was improved by the efforts of the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). The CWA re-graded the school playground; worked on the flooring; and remodeled the school lunch room. The FERA completed the school gymnasium. The building has since been demolished.

Constructed as a New Deal project (attributed on one page to the Civil Works Administration, but more likely, based on the date, a Federal Emergency Relief Administration construction), Sioux City's historic Grandview Park Bandshell "is 102 feet wide, 51 feet high and cost around $51,000 to build in 1935." The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"A major park that African Americans on the west side frequented was Grant Park, located at 3rd Avenue and Grant Street. Grant Park existed as an empty lot with grass and trees until the city Parks and Recreation Department renovated it in 1934 through Civil Works Administration funding. In 1937 Works Progress Administration funding provided for the construction at Eastlake Park of a bathhouse, showers, and dressing rooms for the pool. Two years later, the city added lights, swings, sandboxes, sports facilities, and equipment. The park added a bandstand, tennis courts, and a recreation hall where teens in the 1950s...

Sitting one mile west of the city limit on the Reno Truckee highway (today West 4th Street). Most of the sand and gravel used in New Deal projects in Reno came from here. The CWA and NIRA gave the city of Reno $14248.00 for development and operation of this pit.

Multiple New Deal agencies worked to develop Green Brook Park in Plainfield, New Jersey beginning in 1933. The project involved the construction of a 1.55-acre artificial lake (which could be converted into an ice skating rink during the winter); the stocking of said lake with fish; the building of a footbridge across the brook; grass seeding; small dams to create modest waterfalls along the brook; paths around the lake and through the park; construction of a baseball diamond; and the planting of more than 2,000 trees, shrubs, and other plants.

“One of the big projects accomplished during the CWA program in Morris County and now nearly completed is the creation of a storage reservoir on top of Green Pond Mountain and within the Picatinny arsenal limits. This will cut out considerable pumping costs and prove a real economy in the future. Atop of Green Pond Mountain…lies a swamp….This natural basin of several acres in extent collects many thousand gallons of water from the nearby slopes….The basin is surrounded by many drainage slopes leading thereto which act as natural feeders to it. Consideration has frequently been given to a contemplated dam...