Work Relief Programs Sites

According to the Washington Park Association (WPA), the Works Progress Administration (same abbreviation) helped Washington Park " its current shape." The Association notes, "(The Washington Park Association chose their name wisely when they picked WPA for our abbreviation.)" The details of this project are unknown to Living New Deal. Part of Bergen County's parks system, Washington Park straddles the border between Jersey City and Union City, N.J., and is still in active use.

"A new drive and parking station was laid out at Washington Park. The lagoon at Washington Park was drained and cleaned."

The Works Progress Administration completed improvements at Washington Park Improvements in Pasadena CA. A plaque located on site reads: "Washington Park is one of the City of Pasadena's earliest public parks. Renowned landscape architect Ralph Cornell and horticulturalist Theodore Payne were hired by the City in 1922 to create a plan for the park and “sunken gardens.” Their design included curving paths, river rock walls, ramadas, picnic areas, and many native plants and formal plantings. Included also were tennis courts and a children's playground. Among Payne and Cornellis other Pasadena projects are Memorial Park and La Pintoresca Park. A wash that ran through...

"Final approval of two improvement projects for the City of Yakima was announced today by Don G. Abel, Works Progress Administrator. ... project, slated to be under way December 13, will consist of revamping the landscaping in Washington Park, building of cinder paths, improvement of old ones and a general realignment of the natural setting. Eighteen men will be allotted to the project. While this project will cost the City of Yakima only $288, the WPA will invest $3,351, Abel stated." The exact location of Washington Park in Yakima, Washington is unknown to Living New Deal.

Washington, Pennsylvania's Washington Park bears a stone pavilion that was built by the WPA.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) constructed what was then known as the V.F.W. Pool at George Washington Park in Casper, Wyoming, in 1934. Work relief labor conducted additional development work at Washington Park. Casper Star-Tribune, March 3, 1935, discussing work relief projects from 1934: "Within the park is the Veterans of Foreign Wars' swimming pool and dressing-room building, the latter requiring an outlay of $15,978 last year." The status of the facility is unknown to Living New Deal.

The Washington Park Zoo is thought to be the only zoo completely designed and landscaped by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and its predecessor agencies (FERA – Federal Emergency Relief Administration, and CWA – Civil Works Administration.) It spans across 15 acres on a hilly sand dune in Michigan City, IN, close to the southeastern tip of Lake Michigan and to this day houses more than 220 animals of 90 different species from around the world. Planning for a zoo board first began when Albert R. Couden was appointed city manager in 1928. He hoped the zoo would work as a...

The WPA constructed new buildings and made improvements to existing zoo facilities. They built a new elephant house. The zoo no longer exists at this location.

Helen Tangires writes, "During the New Deal, public markets were vital to government efforts to reduce agricultural surplus in the countryside and high food prices in the cities. Under the direction of Fiorello LaGuardia, New York's mayor from 1934 to 1945, municipal architects working in the Department of Markets developed a series of enclosed market houses to replace pushcart markets." With funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA), New York City's Department of Public Markets constructed partially enclosed market sheds, and revitalized former pushcart markets including the Washington Public Market ("Public Markets" by Helen Tangires). The market burned down in the 1950s,...

The federal Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) conducted restoration / improvement work at Washington Reservation / Washington Park during the 1930s.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) rebuilt the Washington School in Sapulpa OK. Contributor note: "Washington School was closed in 2012 and now serves as the district's Administrative Center. It is listed by the Oklahoma Historical Society as a WPA project. The two-sided cornerstone on the building shows it was originally built in 1903. A second side to the cornerstone shows it was re-built in 1937 by the WPA. We have been unable to determine the extent of the "re-build" and what features are fully WPA construction. Washington School is a three-story brick building with a flat roof. The ground floor is rusticated native...

A WPA press release from Dec. 1937 announced that $5,800 was "allotted to the Secretary of State's Office, Olympia. The Olympia project is for the purpose of folding, binding and covering pamphlets and books. The help provided the Secretary of' State will not displace any regularly employed person in that Office."

In 1934 the Civil Works Adminiistration (C.W.A.) and Emergency Relief Administration (E.R.A.) conducted the following improvement work along part of Washington St. in the City of Barre: The street was widened, graded, drained, slopes sodded and granite retaining walls built. The W.P.A. removed disused street car rails from the street in 1938.

"Washington State Park is a Missouri state park in the central eastern part of Missouri containing native American rock carvings. These carvings, or petroglyphs, carved in dolomite rock, are believed to have been made around 1000 to 1600 and give clues to the lives of the prehistoric native Americans who once inhabited this part of Missouri. It is also believed that the park served as ceremonial grounds for these Middle Mississippi people who were related to the builders of the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. "Most of the carvings are of birds, arrows, footprints, turkey tracks, human figures, and various geometric shapes...

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 Washington Street in Wilmington. According to Delaware's Annual Report of the Chief Engineer State Highway Department, 1934: The work was carried on throughout the State, and consisted largely of clearing and grubbing, ditching, grading, sodding, construction of sidewalks, building of masonry culverts and bridges and the re­ pairing of dikes along the banks of the Delaware and Christian Rivers. An average of 1,410 were put to work each week...

The Works Progress Administration carried out improvement work on Washington Street in Columbia, Alabama.

Before November 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed sewer lines along Washington Avenue, between 15th and 20th Streets, in the Kanawha City area of Charleston. It appears that work crews left behind such muddy conditions that Chamberlain Junior High (now Elementary) principal complained in a letter to WPA officials. At the time, the streets were known as 15th (now 44th Street) and 20th (now 49th Street). 20th Street was also known as Main Street.  

The small frontier town of Washington, Texas entered history on March 2, 1836 when representatives of the largest settlements in Texas met inside an unfinished building near the banks of the Brazos River to declare independence from Mexico. When independence was gained, some of those delegates lobbied to designate Washington as the permanent capital of the new Republic of Texas. However, that honor went to Austin, and by the end of the nineteenth century, Washington was little more than a ghost town. In the 1910s, community groups and influential citizens lobbied Texas legislators to make the state acquire sites related...

Washginton's Walk is an area of parkland extending along the south edge of Jerome Park Reservoir, stretching roughly from Strong Street Playground to Old Fort Four Park. Although we have yet to uncover direct textual evidence of New Deal involvement in the development of this stretch of parkland along the south end of Jerome Park Reservoir, researcher Frank da Cruz makes a persuasive case here for the likelihood of New Deal involvement in building Washington's Walk. First, photos of the area from 1924 show that the park did not exist at that point. So, da Cruz explains, "unless the Bronx...

The Works Progress Administration built the Washita County Jail in Cordell OK. Contributor note: "The former Washita County Jail is a one and two-story stucco building constructed as a WPA project in 1940 with an appropriation of $21,000. The two-story center section has a four-step staircase with masonry sidewalls, leading to a single metal door. Windows are metal casement. To the east and west are one-story stucco wings, with metal framed windows covered with metal bars. A bronze WPA shield is mounted to the right of the door. The building is currently painted a light cream with rust-colored trim. The window framing and...

"The Washita Valley Community Center at 1500 S. Henderson is built into a hill and is one-story on the front and two-story at the rear. It is constructed of native sandstone and has large window openings filled with glass blocks. A back porch on the second level is accessed by a metal stairway. Several original doors have been blocked in with sandstone. The community center is located next to the Washita Valley Park. It was constructed by the WPA in 1935 with an appropriation of $5,156. This year, the building was refurbished and is now a social space for the town,...

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) each worked to develop the Washoe Country Club in Reno, Nevada. The historic golf course is still in use today. Work began in May 1935 (by the FERA) and the course was completed in October 1936 (by the WPA).  The course was built on the site of the original Reno airfield.

"In January, 1937, the community of Avila, consisting of 75 people, installed the first wastewater collection system for the community at a cost of $10,670. This included 5,000 feet of 6” sewer lines, 18 manholes, 1 flush tank, 2 septic tanks and 200 feet of cast iron sewer. This became a WPA project with $8,464 contributed from the WPA resulting in a net cost to the community of $2,206."

The Works Progress Administration built a sewage disposal plant in Carbon Hill, circa 1937.

Medford Lakes's Municipal Sewer Plant and collection pipelines, Waste Water Treatment Facility and collection system was built with Works Progress Administration (WPA) assistance in 1937-1938. "The sewage system for the community was built in 1937 to 1938 through WPA assistance and has been extended so that now Medford Lakes is completely sewered."

The Works Progress Administration worked to improve the former Watauga County Courthouse in Boone, North Carolina by painting the building. The structure has since been demolished and replaced.

The Watauga County Courthouse complex in Boone, North Carolina "includes a Works Projects Administration funded building as part of its annex." The striking stone building "was completed in 1939 and housed the Watauga County Library from 1946 through 1997." The building is located at the southwest corner of Queen Street and North Water Street. The News and Observer explained: With county functions becoming greater, Watauga found itself with insufficient space in which to house the public health officer, the county agent, the home demonstration agent, the public welfare department, school superintendent and other governmental agencies. The new county native stone structure now provides...

Construction for Watauga State Park began in 1939 with the CCC arrival to survey, clear land, and begin dam construction and other facilities (Van West, 2001). Kingsport Times (Sept. 18, 1939) indicated the name Watauga was rejected due to so many nearby projects with the name Watauga, and the park was to be named Kettlefoot State Park, but other records indicating a name change were not located. The CCC camp was expected to be completed by October, 1939, and landscape architects were developing park designs. Watauga State Park was developed as one of four Recreation Demonstration Areas for Tennessee (Jones...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted work to improve the Watchung Reservation as part of a massive collection of New Deal improvements to the Union County Parks System.

The Cape Vincent Eagle reported: "One of the largest construction jobs in Jefferson county under the W.P.A. was the building of a fire protection system at Natural Bridge. This system included a water system with reservoir and hydrants."

Works Progress Administration (WPA) records in the National Archives report that in 1937 WPA labor was used to "erect a brick building in the city to be used as a combination carpentry and blacksmith shop by the Sewer Department." The location was not given, but is very likely to have been at the old Sewer Department site on the Anacostia River in the southeast quadrant of the district.   Next to the still-extant Water and Sewer Authority garage is a group of brick buildings of the same era at the junction of First Street and Potomac Avenue. Any one of these,...

In 1936 Work: A Journal of Progress reported that in 1933-34 the Civil Works Administration (CWA) relief workers constructed 245 feet of seawall at the Sewer Division property yard and a cable shed at the garage. The exact site was not specified. Nevertheless, the Water and Sewer Authority (then known as the Sewer Division) owns a large waterside property at the foot of First Street on the Anacostia River that would be a likely place for such a seawall.  This is further confirmed by a later report in Work: A Journal of Progress that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was soon...

"Improvements to streets, sidewalks, bridges, drainage and sewerage systems" including the "...Water and Sewer works adjacent to the dam" on Deer Creek (Embree, 2004, p. 54). The remains of the building are present, though it is not in use.

"The sewer and water-main projects provided the city with an extensive system of new mains in addition to the replacement of old ones, no longer large enough to meet the requirements of the city. By 1938, 8,500 feet of sewer mains and 9,160 feet of water mains had been installed."

Municipal reports from Nashua's local governments documented extensive New Deal work on the cities water and sewer systems during the 1930s: 1933 Mayor Alvin Lucier reported: "As we take over the reins of government today, we do so with abiding faith that it shall continue its progress. Such is the pledge that we make to the people who have chosen us as their representatives. Although he was against mortgaging our city's future by bond issues, Mr. Sullivan saw a duty to co-operate with President Roosevelt's program started last summer, when the federal government provided over three billion dollars for public works in...

"Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs helped the community... Additional aid came when the Works Progress Administration provided funds that constructed and improved the water and sewer system ..."

In December 1934, Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) labor was busy building two water conservation dams in Brown County northwest of Ainsworth. The dams were built on the farms of Mr. L. D. Crawford and Mr. Fred Wallenstein. Five additional dams were planned for other farmsteads in the Buffalo Flat section of the county. The applicant paid for materials and the labor was funded by the reemployment office.

This little Art Deco gem was constructed for the City of Rome Water Department by the Works Projects Administration (the renamed WPA) in 1938-40.  The building contained offices and parking (the entrance on the left was originally a garage bay).  Its present use is unknown.

In October 1935, a flood control project began in Bisbee, directed by A.O. Grant of the federal soil conservation service. According to the Arizona Daily Star, January 18, 1936, the project included the construction of “hundreds of check dams in canyons, erection of miles of rubble masonry walls and repairing the Tombstone Canyon subway.” It was reported that in Moon Canyon, 500 check dams were built, and hundreds of feet of rubble masonry walls were constructed on OK Street and Brewery Gulch. The newspaper reported 220 men will have worked on the project from October 1935 to January 1936.