Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sites

In 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) allotted funds for a 3 runway airport in Charlotte. Charlotte's major airport was built between 1935 and 1937. The WPA also built the Douglas Airport Hangar is located at 4108 Airport Drive in Charlotte, N.C. According to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, "This airport was the W.P.A.’s largest project, in allotment of funds, at the time in North Carolina."

"During the Great Depression, the old wooden building used by the academy was replaced in 1936 with one made of sandstone built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). While this school was being constructed, school was held in the Methodist church building behind what was then Weaver’s Store. The WPA building is in use today by the school district, with the Bayou Dota Masonic Lodge No. 126 holding its meetings upstairs. In 1952, the Charlotte and Cord schools merged to form the Cord-Charlotte School District. In 2004, Cord-Charlotte consolidated with the Newark school district to create the Cedar Ridge School...

Rochester, New York's Charlotte High School contains a series of murals commissioned by the federal Works Progress Administration. "The eight murals, each 19 feet tall, were painted in oil on canvas in 1942 by Carl Peters for the Works Progress Administration (WPA)." (rochesterpublicart.com) "Peters’ series captures his understanding of the history of the Lake Ontario region, starting from the Native Americans who originally inhabited the land, to the final scene he called the “Triumph of the American Ideal." (https://mag.rochester.edu/murals/charlotte-high-school/) "In 1937, Rochester’s WPA art project was called “the most interesting and effective outside of New York City” by the regional director of the...

The July 18 1938 Bangor Daily News reports on roadwork in this sparsely populated town near the Canadian border. "The towns of Dennysville and Pembroke have no WPA projects, although a number of WPA workers from these towns are employed on the Moosehorn game reserve in the Baring area. Road construction is carried on along the road from Baring to Charlotte. This, in unimproved sections, is very narrow, with hardly sufficient width for the passage of two automobiles. When completed, a "through" road of splendid construction will prove a short-cut to Calais from residents of Charlotte and Pemmbroke as well...

The New York Times wrote the following in 2003 in a retrospective article of New Jersey-based artist Michael Lenson: " moved to Newark and applied at the W.P.A. office on Halsey Street ... Soon, Mr. Lenson was designing and executing murals for the state W.P.A. program. He went on to become assistant state supervisor in charge of the other muralists in the agency. By the time the federal W.P.A. closed in 1943, Mr. Lenson had created six murals and supervised the execution of 15 more in New Jersey by other artists. He also made one mural in West Virginia." "Three of Mr. Lenson's...

Between 1937 and 1939 the WPA made improvements to Chase Park in Seminole, Oklahoma. The improvements included the construction of a wading pool and bathhouse. The Oklahoma Historic Preservation Survey notes that "...The workers who built the bathhouse and pool were drawn from relief rolls and had lost their jobs due to the economic depression. Their labor supplied the city of Seminole with recreational facilities that have been of benefit to many children on the hot summer days of southern Oklahoma. The facilities are unique to Seminole for their type and materials. They also demonstrate the variety of construction undertaken by...

Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport was developed in part by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. Tennessee Encyclopedia: "Some of Tennessee's largest WPA projects reflected the arrival of the age of flight. WPA workers ... built major airports in Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, and at the Tri-Cities."

An attraction at Fairbanks Park’s north end is the Chauncey Rose Memorial. Dedicated in the 1930s to Chauncey Rose, businessman and philanthropist, it was constructed using the columns and facade from the old post office building at Seventh and Cherry and built by Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor. Among other projects, Mr. Rose endowed the Rose Polytechic Institute, now Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Date on the dedication marker was, unfortunately, defaced by vandals.

Built by the WPA in 1939.

A Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) Bulletin details the following project undertaken by the W.P.A. in Newton: "Flood damage by two brooks which formerly went on rampages during spring floods has been eliminated by construction of masonry walls for a mile and a quarter in Cheesecake brook and for 830 feet in Laundry brook."

According to a Works Progress Administration (WPA) Information Division document, a new museum was built in the park. As well, “Five miles of road and 20 miles of trail have been completed by WPA workers, with large auto parking spaces and picnic grounds, open air fireplaces with tables and benches and shelters…a ten-acre lake, formed by damning streams in the vicinity will provide boating and bathing facilities. A 600 foot earthen dam is being constructed, and the muck in a lowland area is being dredged out of for the lake bed…The western edge of the lake will be filled with...

On June 25, 1936, the Department of Parks announced the completion of a reconstructed area at this neighborhood park in Chelsea, explaining: "...the reconstructed area will have a large play area with one ball field, handball courts, complete play equipment for small children and a wading pool." The park was further redesigned by the WPA in 1940, which added a new asphalt surface to west section of the park "graded so that it can be flooded for ice-skating when sub-freezing temperatures permit. In season it will be used for roller skating, roller hockey, softball, basketball and other group games." The WPA also...

A Boston Public Works Department report cited Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) labor as conducting the following work: "he Chelsea Viaduct was repaved and a guard rail constructed."

This small park near the waterfront in Chelsea was first acquired by the NYC Parks Department in 1915. In 1923, the park was named in honor of Thomas F. Smith, a Chelsea native turned successful politician. It was further transformed in the 1930s: "In 1931 the park was compromised by the opening of the West Side also known as the Miller Elevated Highway, which bisected the property. Improvements were made to the easterly portion in the mid-1930s, including the introduction of handball and shuffle-bard courts, horseshoe pits, and London planetrees (Platanus x acerifolia)." More precisely, the Department of Parks press release announced...

The Works Progress Administration photo above shows the dikes constructed along Chemung River in Big Flats, New York to mitigate the flood hazard that the river posed to the town. Living New Deal does not know the present status and exact location of this project.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a dike at Liberty Street in Elmira, New York to mitigate the flood hazard posed by the Chemung River. Living New Deal does not know the current status of this project.

" buildings were erected by workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Two programs of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal program to pull the country out of the Great Depression. They began working in 1933 — only three years after the park opened on Memorial Day in 1930. Roads were built and drainage systems were put in by those workers in a park designed by Dr. Laurie Coz and students of Syracuse University’s School of Forestry. Using nature and its environs, they carefully sculpted out a park with forested areas for cabins and clear fields for sports fields,...

Cherokee County completed its current courthouse in 1941 with the assistance of the Works Progress Administration. The courthouse is a three-story center block on basement with two-story wings on either side. The Moderne style structure, designed by the firm of Gill & Bennett, is built of native red and white limestone and features Art Deco details.

In 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built a three-story lifeguard station in Long Beach, CA. Originally located at the foot of Linden Avenue, it was moved to Cherry Avenue in 1961.

Today's NYC Parks website explains that: "The land now occupied by Cherry Clinton Playground was owned by the Board of Education through the first few decades of the 20th century, and was used as the Seventh Ward Athletic Field until jurisdiction was transferred to Parks on June 16, 1938. The park was opened to the public on April 3, 1940 and included four paddle tennis courts, four handball courts, and a basketball-volleyball court." The 1940 press release announcing the playground's opening further explained that the playground was "designed by the Park Department and built by the Work Projects Administration."

Just south of I-44 in the northeast corner of Oklahoma lies a historic 1936 school building built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). "This one-room, rectangular (23' x 45') structure is made of uncut native stone." The building is now privately owned. Remarkably, Google Street View imagery from I-44 shows the building to be extant as of 2017, even given that there is no exit to S 680 Rd., on which the structure resides, from the interstate.

"Cherry Lake Farm (also known as Cherry Rural Rehabilitation Project) was a New Deal rural relief program initiated by the FERA and the Resettlement Administration (RA) and implemented by the WPA. The project involved moving 500 needy families from Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville onto a 15,000-acre communal tract. The workers formed the cooperatively-owned Cherry Lake Farms (headquartered in the 1839 former plantation home, the Hinton House) and constructed a school, an auditorium, a coop store, barracks, a lumber yard, and a mill. Families lived in 170 cottages with phones, electricity, and running water?all furnished by jointly-owned utilities."   (www.floridamemory.com) According to the...

The Cherryville, MO school project is on the east side of route 19, just north of route 49. The school and gymnasium were more recently built, with funds and labor provided by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The school is no longer in service.

In 1935-36, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) repaved a segment of Chesapeake Street NW, from Nebraska Avenue to Fort Drive.   The work was part of the $949,496 WPA allotment for DC roadwork for fiscal year 1936.   The work is likely still extant, but invisible and paved over.        

According to a wayside marker at the current Chestertown Firehouse (see photo and source note 1 below), the Chestertown Town Hall, at 118 N. Cross Street, was Chestertown’s firehouse for forty years (1938-1978). The old Chestertown Firehouse was one of 325 new firehouses built by WPA workers between 1935 and 1943. And, in addition to these new constructions, WPA workers engaged in hundreds of other projects to repair or improve existing firehouses (Federal Works Agency 1946). There can be little doubt that thousands of fires across America have been responded to, and put out, thanks in part to facilities built or improved...

Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) labor reconstructed the Chestnut Hill Ave. bridge across Millers River in Athol, Massachusetts. WPA Bulletins: Sept. 1936: WPA skilled bridge workers rebuilding the Chestnut Hill Avenue Bridge, Athol, which was damaged by the Spring flood.   Oct. 1936: Chestnut Hill Avenue Bridge, Athol, ravaged by the Spring floods, is being reconstructed by WPA and will soon be opened to traffic. Forty unskilled and 18 skilled workers are employed on this project.

The W.P.A. conducted repair and improvement work on numerous civic facilities in Newton, Massachusetts, including at the former Chestnut Hill fire station.

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) and Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) funded the labor for and materials for improvements to the former Chestnut City School building in Millville, Massachusetts. Improvements included painting, for which the federal government also paid for the project's materials; and filling, grading, and drainage work to the grounds. Living New Deal believes this to be what was known as Millville's Little Red Schoolhouse, a building on Chestnut Hill Road that is now a private residence. Its exact location is unknown to Living New Deal.

Completed in 1936 to provide space for community theater and musical performances, this beautiful Works Progress Administration stone amphitheater remains in good condition in Chestnut Ridge Park, off of East Avenue in Akron, Ohio. The amphitheater has been given Ohio Historic Preservation Office No SUM-354-16. Akron submitted a$1,000,000 proposal to WPA to improve Glendale and Waters parks, along with 10 other parks (Akron Beacon Journal, Dec. 23, 1935, p. 23). The projects were announced approved in March 1936, and Akron’s share of $30,000 was financed with bonds. Work was provided for “several hundred men”, 24 separate projects on 38 park properties and...

Chestnut Ridge Park in Orchard Park, New York was one of a number of parks in Erie County improved ca. 1936 by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA).

"The Chevalier Theatre was built in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration as part of the Medford High School complex."

In 1936, the Washington Post reported that improvement work was going forward at several city playgrounds, the Chevy Chase Recreation Center playground among them. This would have been part of a major New Deal park renovation effort across the district.  The work was likely done by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which had undertaken a nearly $1 million program of park and playground improvements in 1935-36.

Works Project Administration (WPA) project No. 7214, sponsored by the city of Glendale. "This project provides for the construction of a reinforced concrete distributing reservoir of 5,000,000 gallon capacity with connecting pipe lines, and a roadway for maintenance and service. It will replace a series of wooden tanks, now serving this isolated district, which are not at the proper elevation to tie in with the rest of the reservoir system. This project also provides for the connecting of the new unit with the Park Manor reservoir, which will bring another isolated territory into the system. The availability of interconnected reservoirs will...

The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens were established well after the advent of the New Deal. However, some WPA efforts can be seen at the site. "The site for the Children's Village is centered in what used to be a city parks shop. This site included a large native stone garage (now the classroom/laboratory) and rock wall which now surrounds the Children's Village. The garage and wall were constructed in the early 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration." (Wikipedia)

Before Midway Airport was called Midway it was known as the Municipal Airport. However, in the 1930s, under the watchful eye of the WPA (Works Progress Association), the airport went under construction to expand and add new runways for safer travel. It also during this time held the top spot for the most traveled airport in the world. To this day it is the third busiest airport and continues to use the ideas and expansions made from the New Deal. In the 1930s there many airports that were going under construction as part of the New Deal programs, such as the...

"Veterans Lake is located in the western portion of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area's Platt Historic District. The lake is an excellent fishing venue, hiking and picnicking nearby. No-wake boating is allowed on the lake. It was created by the damming of Wilson Creek. Veterans Lake was built in in the mid-1930s by the WPA and became part of Chickasaw National Recreation Area in 1983. Land for the lake was funded by local citizens in the Sulphur area. The 67-acre lake was named in honor of American war veterans. The lake offers three miles of shoreline, along with a boat ramp,...

"The Chickasha Junior High School building currently houses the Middle School. The gymnasium/auditorium so closely matches the architecture of the main school building that it appears to be a single construction project, however, research has only found reference to the gym/auditorium as being a WPA project. The aerial photo in the gallery shows the auditorium at the bottom, and the gymnasium above it, in the center of this block-square school campus. The auditorium is constructed of tan brick and has a curved entrance with the word "AUDITORIUM" cast in stone at the top. A set of four 8-pane windows are on...

Description of W.P.A. projects: "Chickatawbut Road, Braintree; work will be started in the early spring of 1939 on the general improvement and beautification of the Chickatawbut Road entrance to Blue Hills Reservation. Work will include tree removal, clearing, excavation, rip-rapping of brooks, rubble wall construction, fence relocation, road drainage, resurfacing of surface road, grading, loaming and seeding and all incidental work." "Chickatawbut Road at Granite Street, Braintree; improvement and beautification of this entrance to the Blue Hills Reservation."

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) worked on the Chico airport in 1934 and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved and finished the work in 1935. The specifics of what they did are only partially known to the Living New Deal. WPA job cards at the Fresno Public Library describe some of the work completed by the WPA: "WPA Project No. 65-3-1920, Application date 9-25-35, $12,365 'Airport Improvements.' Presidential Letter #866 - 10-24-35 - Rescinded $12,365 Project Rescinded. O.P. 115-03-4508 Takes the place of the above project - See application folder for accepted G.A.O. Description" "WPA Project No. 65-3-1920, Application Date 11/5/35, $12,365, 'Continuation of...

Install sewerage system including excavation and backfill, sheet piling, pipe laying and manholes. Replace paths and roads removed due to trenching.--Mooser, p. 95.