Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sites

The WPA-built stone wall runs 1000 feet along the Blackstone River through Pawtucket, adjacent to Pawtucket City Hall and Historic Slater Mill. Both of those sites are located on Roosevelt Ave and are on the National Registry of Historic Places. The wall runs from behind 137 Roosevelt Ave to 67 Roosevelt Ave, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, 02860. It was built in 1940 and is still in excellent condition.

The school built by the PWA in 1936, and in 1937, the WPA also did extensive work on the school including: "Improve the high school building and grounds in Bladensburg…by grading athletic field, constructing soccer field, running track, steps to front entrance and bus unloading spaces; and performing appurtenant and incidental work." (National Archives) In 2001, the New Deal facility was torn down and a new facility was built in its place in 2005.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of Bladensburg Rd. NE, from New York Ave. to Twenty-Fourth Place NE. This project assisted regular District of Columbia municipal workers, and was described as follows: “Prior to the widening of Bladensburg Road, an open stream (storm water) paralleled the roadway on its east side for quite a distance to the north. In order to obtain the required width it was necessary to enclose this stormwater in a five-foot sewer. This work was difficult because the banks on each side of the stream consisted of filled ground. The project was completed by the forces...

The Works Progress Administration built the Blaine Stadium and Fieldhouse in Ponca City OK in 1936-1937. The stadium is built with rusticated stone. It is still used by Ponca City High School football. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. According to the Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory Nomination for the Blaine Stadium, the stadium project created "wages for 32,000 man-hours of labor into the local economy, helping to revitalize the mainstreet hit hard by the decline of the oil industry and of the value of agricultural products."

The Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) conducted drainage work along a waterway known as Blake's Brook in Ashland, Mass. Living New Deal cannot determine the location of this waterway.

The Works Progress Administration built the Blanchard gym/auditorium in Blanchard OK. Contributor note: "The Blanchard gym/auditorium was completed as a WPA project in 1941. This is a one-story red brick building with an arched roof. On the west end, two wings reach north and south. All windows have been boarded up. The west end of the building has been remodeled with a roof facade, and currently houses the Blanchard Alumni Association, addressed as 400 N. Harrison Avenue. Two brick pillars at curbside were placed by the Classes of 1939 and 1940. Above the windows on the rear portion of the building is a...

Blanchette Park is a large park overlooking the Missouri River Valley in northern St. Charles which was the first Missouri State Capital. The WPA's work in the park included a swimming pool, lake, walks and fences, and remodeling of Memorial Hall in the park.

A National Archives photo caption describes a sizable federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) project undertaken in Utica, New York: "300 WPA workers building a new sewer line on Blandina Street, Utica, NY, which replaces an old sewer laid 66 years (ago). This job is being finished in 8 days - 2 days ahead of schedule- working 24 hours daily, 7 days a week. Cost will be $1000 under estimate." (FERI)

The Federal Writers' Project's guide to New York State explained: "Bleecker Stadium, Clinton Ave. between Swinburne Park and Ontario St., with a field house of Georgian Colonial design, was built by the WPA. It seats 10,000 and has two baseball fields, a football field, a quarter-mile track, jumping and vaulting pits, and tennis courts." "The stadium opened on Thanksgiving Day 1934. The clubhouse was built in 1940 under the Works Progress Administration..."   (wikipedia.org)

Blenheim Park was founded in 1922. In the late 1930s, Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers made improvements to the park.

The Marie Heineke Memorial Gymnasium was built in 1938-40 by Blinn College and the Work Projects Administration.

The WPA allocated funds for construction of a new school building in Bloomfield, Montana in 1938. The location and current status of the structure in question is unknown to Living New Deal. The allocation for the structure appears on Montana WPA Roll 24 under project number 665-91-2-2.

Rural bridge and box culvert constructed in 1938 as part of the WPA "farm to market" road improvement initiative.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed the stone gymnasium structure at Blowing Rock School. It was one of many educational facilities constructed by the WPA in Watauga County. The WPA also constructed a "well-planned" playground. The school facility has since been largely demolished and replaced, though the WPA gymnasium still remains.

This former WPA school in what was then the community of Blue Bell (no longer extant) was restored as a private residence in the 1990s: "But now, thanks to an adventurous couple from Tulsa, there is something else in Blue Bell that promises to secure its legacy - an old, hand-hewn sandstone school building restored to its glory and looking much as it did in 1937 when it was built by the Works Progress Administration... The building, gutted and remodeled during the past four years by the Wingfields, has everything that more modern homes have - living room, kitchen, bedrooms, baths. But...

W.P.A. project description: "Blue Hill River Road and Ponkapoag Trail, Milton; early in 1939 work will be begun on additional improvements at the recreational area adjacent to Hoosicwhisick Pond. The project provides for the construction of 3,250 linear feet of roadway 12-ft. wide, two parking spaces of 17,000 square yards, clearing and grubbing of 145,000 square yards of wooded land and incidental work of grading, laying drains, removing trees, etc."

Description of a W.P.A. project: "Blue Hills Parkway; in the early spring of 1939, work will be started on the construction of a bituminous concrete walk from Kahler Avenue to Canton Avenue. The major items of work are the construction of 6,900 linear feet of 6-ft. wide bituminous concrete walk, regrading, loaming and seeding of 920 linear feet of 9-ft. wide planting space and 4,600 linear feet of 5-ft. wide planting space."

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Civil Works Administration (CWA), and Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted extensive development work at Massachusetts's Blue Hills Reservation. Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission annual reports detail the work of the CCC over time. 1933 report: "In the latter part of June a Civilian Conservation Camp was established by the National Park Service for Emergency Conservation Work for State Parks in the Blue Hills Reservation near Randolph Avenue. The camp was in charge of U. S. Army Officers. The enlisted men in the camp varied from 212 to 145. The work of the men in the reservation has been handled by a...

"In 1935, the National Park Service created the Blue Knob National Recreation Demonstration Area to provide recreation to the people of Altoona and Johnstown. The Works Progress Administration employed local workers to build cabins, hiking trails and roads. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 2327 arrived in October of 1939. After building Camp NP-7, the young men aided in creating the park recreational facilities. World War II ended the CCC. On September 26, 1945, the National Park Service transferred Blue Knob to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and it became Blue Knob State Park." "Since the CCC years, facilities of the park have...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) pursued a number of improvements at Blue Mounds State Park in Minnesota in 1938. Initial improvement plans called for the “construction of a bathhouse, facilities for picnicking and camping and general recreation.” The WPA also built dams and other structures.  In what was then called Mounds Springs Recreational Reserve, “workers in the WPA (Works Progress Administration) built five structures: a latrine and the upper and lower dams on Mound Creek, which created Upper and Lower Mound Lakes. The rustic style of the structures features native materials such as locally quarried quartzite. Rustic-style architecture, as defined by...

"The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. It runs for 469 miles (755 km), mostly along the famous Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Its southern terminus is on the boundary between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, from which it travels north to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and offers access to the Skyline Drive, the major north/south artery through the Park. The two All-American Byways are separate and distinct. The Blue Ridge...

Stretching from the Shenandoah National Park, VA, to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, NC, the Blue Ridge Parkway contains 469 miles of continuous scenic road. Not only did the Parkway create tourism revenue for nearby towns and cities, but it protects 88,000 acres of land and all the species living there, and preserves several historical buildings for the public’s education. The project was first envisioned in 1933 with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s visit to Skyline Drive, VA and Virginia Senator Harry Byrd’s idea to connect it to the new Great Smoky Mountain National Park. In November of 1933, Secretary of the...

"Among the several projects in the Virgin Islands was the Bluebeard Castle Hotel. The group of buildings was erected on the summit of a hill 200 feet above the sea. An ancient stone tower with walls 5 1/2 feet thick, is supposed to have been the watchtower of the famous legendary pirate, Bluebeard. The building on the right in the larger illustration contains the lobby, administrative offices, dining room, bar, kitchen, and service rooms. A detail of its entrance portico is illustrated on the right side of this page. Terraces planted with palms, tropical flowers, and foliage surround all the...

The Works Progress Administration built several structures for the Bluejacket Public School between 1936-1939. The author of this submission provided the Living New Deal with the following account based on personal discussions with a family member who was the superintendent of the combined projects: "The work consisted of razing the condemned school building, constructing a gymnasium, constructing a combined grade and high school building. The work started in 1936 and was completed 1939. Work crews began by razing the existing 3-story brick school house, constructing the gymnasium from native tan-variegated sandstone, constructing a combined 1st through 12th-grade schoolhouse with library, administrative offices, and two toilets with...

This stone structure in Goodnow Park was built with help from the NYA in 1938. "Situated in a wooded park setting distinguished by a series of native limestone retaining walls and steps that access the sloping site and cabin. Two-story cabin is of random-coursed limestone with a side-facing fable roof of wood shingles. There is a large stone chimney at the center of the east elevation."   (https://khri.kansasgis.org) The cabin was added to the National Register of Historic Places in January, 2014.

The Works Progress Administration built storm sewers from Bluff Street and Third Street to Elk Creek in Clarksburg.

This is now San Francisco Fire Station No. 8

The bridge carrying Blythe Road over a branch of Washburn Creek, ENE of Dayton Township, northeast of Huntington, Arkansas, was constructed by the Work Projects Administration (W.P.A.) in 1941.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was responsible for construction of the Board of Water and Light Dye Conditioning Plant in Lansing, Michigan. "The Dye Conditioning Plant at 148 South Cedar Street was designed by Lansing architects Lee and Kenneth Black and constructed in 1938-39 by the WPA in a severe, geometric style. It is decorated by WPA/FAP artworks in various media. Appropriate to the building's function, the theme of all of these works is water. This is the best local ensemble of government-sponsored art planned as a unity of architecture, sculpture and painting."

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed an addition to the boardwalk in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1936.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to improve the boardwalk in in Atlantic City ca. 1935-6. The project included the installation of new decking. The improvements helped the boardwalk to withstand the Cape Hatteras hurricane of 1936.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) reconstructed the boardwalk in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. The project "called for 800 linear feet of boardwalk, 24 feet wide, between McCabe and Newark Aves., and 800 linear feet, 34 feet wide, between Lareine and Fifth Aves. Beadley Beach contributed $8,249 for material and equipment; the federal government contributed $17,769. Construction dates: Oct. 1, 1935 to May 29, 1936.

"Soldiers and Sailors is a three panel painted mural in the vestibule of Bob Hope Patriotic Hall. Created in 1942 as part of the WPA Art Project, the mural depicts the United States’ military uniforms from 1776 through 1941. Helen Lundeberg also created three WPA murals in 1942 for Patriotic Hall but those have since been lost." (LACounty Arts Commission.)    

In 1937-38, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved the road to Bodie CA (now CA 270) south of Bridgeport.  Bodie is a relic of a 19th century gold mining boom that had become a ghost town by the mid 20th century.  It was made a California State Park in 1962.  Highway 270 is closed in winter because Bodie stands at over 8,000 feet. The WPA project card in the National Archives states: "Improve Bridgeport - Bodie Road, near Bridgeport, in Mono County, by clearing and grubbing, excavating and filling, installing culverts, surfacing, grading and sloping, and performing appurtenant work. Not a part...

The CCC created Bogus Basin Road, possibly with the assistance of the WPA, which eventually spurred the development of the recreation area. From the Bogus Basin ski resort website: It all started in 1938 when a 24-month WPA road project started the development of Bogus Basin as a recreation site.  A handful of Forest Service experts were called in, of which Alf Engen, founder of the Alta Ski Area in Utah played major roles in site selection.  Three years later, in September of 1941, the non-profit Bogus Basin Recreational Association (BBRA) was incorporated to raise funds and oversee the maintenance of...

Bois D’Arc Elementary School was constructed by the WPA in 1935-37.

The Boise Gallery of Art was originally constructed in 1936 of Boise sandstone in the Art Deco style with the assistance of the WPA. Over the years several additions have been added, but the original building still remains.

The WPA built a new gymnasium for the high school in 1936. According to the school's website: "Students had saved their nickels and dimes and put them in a fund which covered some costs of the structure. The new gym replaced the cracker box located in the basement of the main building. The ceiling in the old gym was so low it interfered with the playing of the game of basketball. The WPA furnished the labor to build the gym." (https://boise.school.boiseschools.org)

Originally Boise Junior College. "Established in 1932, the Boise Junior College was without a permanent home until the initial construction of the present campus in 1940-42. The land had previously been occupied by the Boise airfield, which had moved to its current location at Gowen Field. Designed in the traditional campus style of Collegiate Gothic, the Administration Building (1940), Heating Plant (1940), Assembly Hall (1940-41), and original Student Union (1941-42) represent a more streamlined version of the style as it transitioned into the modern age. The campus infrastructure, landscaping, and original structures were all funded through the WPA." (www.preservationidaho.org)

This school building is a WPA project from 1937. It has rock work that is particularly well-done, though rather spare. The walls are predominately dark river rock with lighter colored rock under the eaves, at the corners, and surrounding the door and windows. It is currently being used as a private residence.