Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) Sites

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) supplied labor for the widening of Broadway Street in Asheville, North Carolina. The cost of the project was $26,209.30, which was mostly borne by the federal government. Furthermore, the CWA supplied $5,225.31 in labor for the resurfacing of Broadway Street. "In Asheville, Biltmore Street, Merrimon Avenue, and Broadway were widened by taking off fronts of all stores, setting them back, and rebuilding, work requiring expert skill."

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) "constructed a new entrance to Brookside Drive" in Amherst, Ohio.

The Brunswick airport was originally built in 1935 by the Maine Emergency Relief Administration, a state division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration after a survey of airports in the state by Capt. Harry M. Jones with the intention of building a chain of airports in coastal towns, inland towns, and lake resorts. It built 1 NW - SE 1800 x 50 gravel runway and 1 E - W 1800x100 graded runway. Naval Air Station Brunswick was developed and occupied in March 1943, and was first commissioned on April 15, 1943, to train and form-up Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm squadrons...

The New Deal dam in Coggon, located in northeastern Linn County, was replaced in 1967 by the current dam, known as the Buffalo Creek Park Dam.41 The New Deal dam was built in order to restore Manhattan Lake in Coggon. Construction began in September 1934 with labor supplied by FERA. Although the date of completion was not discovered, it was originally estimated that the dam would take four months to construct, suggesting an expected completion date in early 1935. However, just as with the FERA dam in Quasqueton, the construction of the Coggon Dam took considerably longer than originally estimated....

In 1933-34, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) carried out pavement repair and other unspecified improvements to a lengthy segment of Bunker Hill Road NE, from Twentieth Street to the District of Columbia line.   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 roadway has been repaved several times since and this work is undoubtedly invisible today.

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) completed improvements at theBurroughs Playground in Washington DC, between 1934 and 1935. The work consisted of the following improvements: “Resurfaced two tennis courts.” The playground is on the school grounds of the John Burroughs Elementary School and is used as a school grounds and community playground.

Calf Pasture Beach is a Norwalk city park. Multiple New Deal agencies worked to improve the park during the 1930s. "Some additional buildings and sidewalks were constructed at Calf Pasture in 1935 with funding provided by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Many of the buildings and sidewalks at Calf Pasture were washed away during the hurricane of September 1938. They were then replaced by Works Progress Administration workers."

The Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration carried out repair and maintenance work on Camino Rio Grande in Morovis.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) funded the construction of Camp Fairchance in Low Gap, Boone County. The buildings were constructed by FERA and later occupied by the WPA. The camp hired unemployed teachers through the WPA, and housed underprivileged children and children without legal guardians.

The WPA and FERA built the "Hostess House" at the recently opened Camp Williams National Guard training site in 1935. From the National Register of Historic Places: "This public works-sponsored building is an example of the Period Revival/ English Tudor style. It is a 1-story building with a broad steeply pitched gable roof. The plan is basically rectangular and there are two projecting gables placed off-center on the principal elevation. Marking the location of the main entrance, these gables are slightly off-set and serve to emphasize the asymmetry of the English Tudor design. Half-timbering, another trademark of the English Tudor style,...

This 1935 Colony House was built as part of the New Deal resettlement program that brought colonists from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin to Palmer Alaska in 1935. The building has recently been restored and accepted to the National Register of Historic Places. It is also the recent Recipient of the 2013 Alaska Association for Historic Preservation Award of Excellence.

Mill Creek Canyon lies east of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Mountains and is a popular recreation area for city dwellers.  It is part of the Unita-Wasatch-Cache National Forest In 1936-37, crews paid under the Employment Recovery Act made extensive improvements to Mill Creek Canyon Park (whether state relief workers or Works Progress Administration crews is unclear). It is likely that Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews were also involved in Mill Creek Canyon, since they were active in the vicinity, working out the Big Cottonwood Canyon CCC camp. New Deal workers built an extensive system of trails, campgrounds and stone supporting walls....

The Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration carried out repair and maintenance work on Candelaria Road in Toa Baja.

Multiple New Deal agencies worked to construct a municipal pool for Canonsburg, Pennsylvania in 1934—1936. The prospect of a pool had been discussed for years, though no progress was made until assistance from New Deal work relief programs was made available. The pool facility was constructed in stages on what had then been a ravine, in the municipal park. Initial construction, which involved the Civil Works Administration (CWA), would be limited to leveling the site, installing storm sewers to "enclose" the ravine, and constructing the 100-foot-by-200-foot pool and filtration plant—not the bathhouse or sidewalks. Work was to be done "by hand...

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration funded improvement work to the Capitol Building in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The Civil Works Administration and the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration carried out grounds landscaping work at the Capitol Building in San Juan.

In early 1934,  the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) sponsored ten local artists to decorate the Utah State Capitol, led by Lee Greene Richards. The others included Ranch Kimball, Henri Moser, Gordon Cope, Florence Ware, J.T. Harwood, Walter Midgley and Millard Mallin. Two large half-circle murals grace the ends of the huge central hall of the capitol building. The cupola of the rotunda has a circular mural, about six feet high, and there are four large murals at each corner atop the pillars.  They all depict romanticized scenes from Utah's past: trappers, native people, pioneers, covered wagons, the transcontinental railroad, and so forth. Millard...

At Capulin Volcano National Monument "the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) ... the retaining wall around the Visitor Center parking area." Modern imagery suggests that the parking lot may have been redone.

Caribou Municipal Airport saw development work conducted by multiple New Deal agencies. It was developed as part of a statewide airport building effort by FERA. It was originally built with a N - S 3000x250 graded sod runway, & a E - W 2,000x300 graded sod runway. W.P.A. project info: "Construct municipal airport" Official Project Number: 165‐1‐11‐60 Total project cost: $181,424.00 Sponsor: Town of Caribou "Construct Caribou Municipal Airport" Official Project Number: 165‐X‐XX‐100 Total project cost: $276,174.00 Sponsor: Town of Caribou "Construct municipal airport" Official Project Number: 165‐1‐11‐100 Total project cost: $1,022,200.00 Sponsor: War Department

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration funded repair work at Casa Blanca in San Juan.

"Built in 1934 on low swampy land across the street from the Bangor Water Works, which supplied city water from the Penobscot River, the park was designed by city manager James G. Wallace and funded by the Works Progress Administration . It was known for its unusual system of water features, including a twenty-foot-tall grotto with a waterfall carved into the hillside and stabilized with a battered stone wall. At the bottom of the cascade, water from a small concrete pool flowed into a narrow concrete “brook,” and then into a larger oval pool. Daytime visitors flocked to see the...

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) conducted improvement / development work at "Casper mountain park."

"Due to the efforts of the members of your Superintending School Committee a number of worthwhile improvements were made on the physical plant. The Castner building was renovated throughout. The development of the school grounds adds much to the beauty and utility of these areas. A very large pro-portion of the expense of this undertaking was met by E. R. A. allotment—making a total of $1200.00 of Federal Funds received by the town as reported by your School Committee. While the labor was furnished by the government, it is necessary to provide the required material from the repairs account. The...

The Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (with funds from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration) carried out new road construction connecting Cavanillas to Santa Cruz Rd. in Carolina.

The 1935 Town report mentions: Public Service Enterprises Fence Construction Centre Cemetery ERA Project ----- $563.69 employing 13 people WPA Highway Project $260.34 WPA Sewing Project $60.21 employing 2 people

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) conducted a cemetery beautification project in Boone, NC. It is unclear which cemetery was improved as part of this project.

The C.W.A., F.E.R.A, and W.P.A. conducted development and improvement work at Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Burlington, Mass. Work included construction of new roads and grading a new addition of land.

In 1934, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) furnished the cost of labor for the construction of a playground behind Center School in Hatfield, Massachusetts. The 35-man project cost the Town of Hatfield only the price of materials for the project ($982), while the federal government paid for the labor (3,028). The Center School itself was constructed as Hatfield's middle school in 1914. The building much later became the Western Massachusetts Regional Library and, as of 2016, has been vacant for about 10 years. It appears that the playground was demolished at some point as the aerial view of the site shows...

Improvements were made to the Central Cemetery in Millbury, Massachusetts with Federal Emergency Relief Act funds in 1933. 282 Millbury locals were given employment in 1933 as a result of the federal E.R.A. The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a bridge at the cemetery in 1937.

The Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration carried out repair work to the Central High School in San Juan.

Central Maine Airport of Norridgewock is a public use airport in Somerset County, Maine, United States. It is owned by the Town of Norridgewock and has two runways. According to the newspaper the Independent Reporter, of FERA funds that were provided for 4 projects in Skowhegan in early 1935, $1,917 went to the airport which at the beginning was called the Skowhegan Airport. The crew consisted of 11 laborers and foreman Charles Stinchfield. In a earlier town hall meeting, $250 was voted by the citizens to contribute toward construction. Initial construction began in 1933 and according to a later article, over...

Mott, North Dakota's Central Park, is located "between 3rd and 4th Sts. Its recreation facilities were built as an FERA project." Tennis courts were suggested as being among the facilities.

The Central Park Zoo was built over the course of eight months in 1934 by workers employed by the Civil Works Administration and, after that program’s demise, by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. It succeeded the old Central Park Menagerie, a once popular attraction that by the early 1930s was so severely dilapidated that Parks Department officials feared its lions and tigers would break out of the rotted wood structures that housed them. Newly-appointed Parks Commissioner Robert Moses set about replacing the menagerie, not with a full-sized zoo, but with what he called a “picture-book zoo”—a smaller-scale facility meant as...

The Central Park Arsenal was built 1847-51, but served only briefly in that function.  After 1853, it was a police precinct house, the American Museum of Natural History, a menagerie, an art gallery, the Municipal Weather Bureau, a restaurant, and, finally in 1914, the Manhattan Parks Department. In 1934, the five borough Parks Departments were consolidated into a unified New York City Parks Department. Then, the Arsenal was overhauled by Depression-era relief labor paid for by New Deal programs.    The architect for the project was Aymar Embury II, who was the chief designer for New Deal/Parks Department projects around the city (the Wikipedia entry on Embury says that, "it is...

Town annual report: The following work has been done under projects, since April, 1934: Central Street, seven men, 1 foreman, five trucks

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) conducted road improvement work in Dover, Mass., including the reconstruction of Centre Street to remove some dangerous turns.

The Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration carried out new road construction on Cerro Gordo in Vega Alta.

In 1933 a group of women organized the Sunshine Club in Chapel Hill, a community near Utica in Hinds county. They secured the donation of land for a clubhouse, helped clear the grounds area and cut trees for the logs with which to construct the facility. In 1934, a work relief project of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was approved which included construction of the club room. The club was active in rural health work including sanitary disposal, protecting water supplies, prenatal clinic, and infant/pre-school education conferences through collaboration of the Hinds county health department. The facility was a log...

A $15,000 improvement project was allotted for Natchez Charity hospital, the oldest charity hospital in Mississippi, for main building and nurses’ home. The hospital was constructed 1849-1852, 3.5 stories, and was destroyed by fire in 1984. It became the Natchez Charity Hospital in 1890s.

$4,600 project was allotted for Vicksburg Charities hospital for main building and nurses’ home renovations in 1934. The building that began as the city hospital in the 1840s because a state institution around 1871, operated from a former plantation mansion. It closed in 1989 following numerous renovations/alterations. It was demolished February 2019.