Works Progress Administration (WPA) Sites

Henry Simon painted a series of murals entitled "The Founding of McKendree College, Lebanon, Illinois." The murals were intended for that institution but never installed. "The Circuit Rider," "Bishop McKendree at the Site of the College" and "Peter Aker's Prophecy" were painted in 1941 with funding from the WPA Federal Art Project.  

The Works Progress Administration extended and built additional facilities for the Wertz Airport in Charleston. The additions included an administration building. The airport serves today under the name Yeager Airport. In 1930 Wertz field was developed in Institute. Operated by West Virginia Airways, Inc the field was named after Charleston Mayor W.W. Wertz. Commercial flight began with American Airlines in 1933 from the same field. The field was a popular site for air shows. The WPA added improvements to the airport with “grading, ditch-digging and other work” by late 1936. Just after this West Virginia State College began the Civilian Pilot Training Program in...

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to improve Wesleyan Drive outside Macon in Bibb County, Georgia ca. 1936.

The WPA provided assistance in repairing and otherwise improving the Ninth Regiment / West 14th Street Armory in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. The building is no longer extant. "The (22nd) Twenty-Second Regiment / 14th Street Armory (1863) building was replaced with the (9th) Ninth Regiment / West 14th Street Armory (1894-1896) building, which was later replaced by (42nd) Forty-Second Division / West 14th Street Armory (1971) building, which in turn was replaced by a mix use structure, all on the same site." (Wikipedia)

The federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) put many men to work starting in 1935 with a Bronx street repair and maintenance project along roads throughout the borough. The streets, many of which in New York City were still unpaved, were surfaced with penetrated macadam. Roads improved included street and sidewalk repairs on West 231st Street from Corlear Avenue to Riverdale Avenue.

Fort Lee, New Jersey received a modern sewer system during the Great Depression with the assistance of federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor. Fort Lee's Palisadian newspaper wrote: For many years has been without the benefit of a sewer system. Often the overflowing of cesspools has created a condition that was not only very unpleasant but to health. The officials have been cognizant of the bad condition for a number of years but because of Fort Lee's sorry financial plight were unable to provide a remedy. A majority of the property owners effected were in no position to shoulder an...

The West End Fire Station, West End Fire Company #3, was built in 1937 with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funding. The building is currently used as a fire station museum.

The caption of the National Archives and Records Administration WPA photo shown here states that this West Falls library was constructed to "provide for the recreational and educational needs of the Village of West Falls." The building is still in use as a library today.

Fort Lee, New Jersey's old West Fort Lee schoolhouse during the Great Depression with the assistance of federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor. Fort Lee's Sentinel newspaper wrote: "Parents and property owners of West Fort Lee were greatly cheered ... by news that the Federal Government has approved a WPA grant for the repair of the West Fort Lee schoolhouse. ... t is hoped will result in the prompt modernization of "a building that is in dire need of such treatment." The exact location of the old school is unknown to Living New Deal.

Built in 1939, this Works Progress Administration project was the Auditorium and Dining Hall for West Georgia College.

The Work Projects Administration (W.P.A.) constructed at least four small bridges in 1940 along West Harmony Road, southwest of Hartford, Arkansas, to carry the thoroughfare across several unnamed ditches.

An inventory of WPA project photographs compiled by Becky Jordan at Iowa State University includes reference to numerous public works projects undertaken by the agency in Iowa between 1935 and 1940. The collection of 1,271 photographs documents the variety and extent of New Deal related efforts undertaken in the Hawkeye State. Included among the many WPA projects described in the collection is the West High School stadium (Project 1055) in Waterloo, Blackhawk County.

The rock wall along the south and east sides of the West Lawn Cemetery in Henryetta, Oklahoma were constructed by the WPA in 1939. The wall is approximately 40 inches high with large square rock pillars about every 12 feet. The wall is 3/10 of a mile long. The cemetery is located in the western part of Henryetta.  

The Works Progress Administration built the West Limestone County High School in Athens, circa 1936-1938. The exact location and condition of the structure is unknown to the Living New Deal.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) installed an eight-inch water main along "upper West Main street" in Middletown, New York.

One of architect Clarence “Cap” Wigington’s distinctive St. Paul structures, the West Minnehaha Recreation Center was built between 1937 and 1938 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Wigington was the first black municipal architect in the country, and many of his designs were brought to completion by New Deal funding and local laborers. See the Harriet Island Pavilion (now Clarence W. Wigington Pavilion) and Hamline Playground Building for other examples of his WPA-era work in St. Paul. The West Minnehaha Recreation Center, known as “West Minne” by locals, was built of Platteville limestone and has received many additions and renovations since...

Scottsbluff's historic former Carnegie Library—now the West Nebraska Arts Center—received an addition constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1936. "The 62-foot addition, built in 1936 by the W.P.A., was designed by architect O. J. Hehnke of Scottsbluff. The addition maintains the original material, parapet, cornice, basement, and window lines." The addition projected from the east end of the building.

In 1936, 550 Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers helped lay 25,000 feet of water pipe around 34th and Adeline Streets in West Oakland, under the auspices of the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD).  In 1937-38, 400 WPA workers helped the EBMUD lay 15,000 feet of 36" and 30" water main "between 22d and Adeline Streets and Fourth Avenue and East 11th Street", according to a report in the Oakland Tribune.  Since those are both intersections, the implication is that the lines ran from West Oakland across downtown to inner East Oakland; but that needs to be verified. In any case, the newspaper...

"The Old West Palm Beach National Guard Armory (also known as the Palm Beach County Armory) is a historic site in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States. It is located at 1703 South Lake Avenue. On June 11, 1992, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The Armory building was constructed in 1939 in Art Deco style by architect William Manley King with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds. It was occupied by the National Guard Armory from 1939-1982."

The W.P.A. was responsible for construction of the band shell at West Park in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

"The first West Portal Branch Library was built on a parcel of land which had been transferred from the Board of Education to the San Francisco Public Library in February of 1936. The Branch was opened to the public on May 2, 1936. Just three years later, on May 8, 1939, the Branch was re-opened in a new building designed by architect Frederick H. Meyer and constructed by the Works Progress Administration for a cost of $109,090. West Portal Branch was designed in a Mediterranean style with colorful red, ceramic roof tiles. Inside, delicate paintings grace the ceiling beams." (sfpl.org)

A WPA-FAP stencil from 1939 decorating the children's and main reading rooms.

West Potomac Park lies just below the National Mall and encircles the Tidal Basin.  It is the site of many national landmarks, including the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, George Mason Memorial, and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial. It is administered by the National Park Service. In the 1930s, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees graded, topsoiled, and seeded a one-and-one-half acre hockey field in West Potomac Park. Although nothing remains of the hockey field, that CCC work established the park as a site of sports and athletics. (HABS Survey report).   In 1936, the Works Progress Administration...

"A Seattle sewer project, at West Prospect and Van Buren was allotted $1,140" in WPA funds in late 1937.

The West Pullman School was established in the late 19th century. During the 1930s, the WPA funded two murals for the school auditorium. The roughly 5' x 10' oil on canvas murals, by Ralph Christian Henriksen, are entitled "American Educational System" and "Americanization of Immigrants." The school closed at the end of the school year in 2013. Current status and future plans for the murals are unknown to the Living New Deal.

WPA workers completed several improvement projects at West Queen Anne Playfield between 1936 and 1939. The largest of these projects was the construction of a combination shelter house, grandstand, and baseball backstop near the intersection of West Blaine Street and 2nd Avenue West, at what was then the southwest corner of the playfield. Work on this one-story, concrete structure was completed in 1937. During the following year, WPA laborers painted the shelter house, regraded the baseball field, and added a new layer of top soil. This was followed in 1939 by the installation of a new water and drainage system,...

W.P.A. project description: "West Roxbury Parkway; all the rough work involved in the construction of a road and parking space at the top of Bellevue Hill has been completed. The finished surfacing (bituminous) will be done in the spring of 1938." "Veterans of Foreign Wars, West Roxbury, and Turtle Pond Parkways; the roadsides of these parkways were beautified for their entire lengths by grubbing, grading and seeding. Ten miles, or 176,000 square yards of property was reclaimed."

Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) workers constructed sewers in West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts. From a W.P.A. Bulletin: Keeping pace with the development of Rendal Road and Weld Street district, in West Roxbury, WPA constructed 1200 feet of sewer and pipe drains. Throughout Boston, WPA has laid more than 21 miles of sewer pipe to date.

"The former West Salem City Hall building was a Public Works Administration project, completed in 1936 at a cost of $30,000. This two-story Art Deco style brick building was designed by architect Lyle P. Bartholemew and served as City Hall for the City of West Salem from 1936 to 1949. It is one of only two Art Deco style buildings in West Salem. Until 1949, West Salem was an independent city, in Polk County on the west side of the Willamette River. It's location on Edgewater Street was in the heart of West Salem's business district. After being plagued by...

WPA Official Project No. 65-97-60 allocated $2,267,810 for "repair and reconstruction of the waterfront between 23 and 34 Streets" in the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River. Another document referred to the project as "modernizing" the area. Much of where the work occurred is now known as Hudson River Park.

"WPA’s legacy is visible today in those and many other ways" in Wilkes-Barre. "Travel was made easier when the East End Boulevard was straightened out and crucial highway links in the Back Mountain and West Side areas were constructed, all by WPA workers."

Then known as West Texas State Teachers College, the campus of what is now West Texas A&M University (WTAMU) was greatly impacted by the New Deal. Notably, multiple sizable construction projects were accomplished with the aid of Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds. Many students were involved with various New Deal agencies: In the 1930s, "Frustrated by the parsimony of the Texas Legislature, WTSTC leaders turned to the federal government for help. By conservative estimates, approximately 25 percent of the student body worked for such New Deal agencies as the National Youth Administration (headed in Texas by Lyndon B. Johnson), the Civil Works Administration and...

Thirty men working for the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to improve West Union Street in Newark, New York, a road which had been previously described by a local newspaper as a "dangerous and hardly passable unimproved road."

The Works Progress Administration built retaining walls for the West Virginia Industrial Home for Girls in the vicinity of Salem, Harrison County.  

The Work Projects Administration (WPA) built the office of the West Virginia Road Commission in Buckhannon. A building plaque states that the project was built by the WPA in 1940 and sponsored by the State Road commission of West Virginia. The gable stone inset bearing the 1939 date suggests that construction begun that year and was completed sometime in 1940. The parcel is listed as district 02, map 2, parcel 19, although parcels 17 and 18 located behind the site are also now state property. The portion of the 1940 building is recorded in deed book 0096, page 313 for 0.82 acres. The...

The WPA partially demolished and reconstructed the West Whittier School in the 1930s. From the photo below: "The West Whittier Grammar School constructed by the WPA in California is a far cry from the little old 'red schoolhouse', of a few decades ago."

"According to a Maryland Historical Trust report, "Westbrook Elementary School (1939) is an important architectural landmark in the history of Montgomery County and its public school. It is the only Federal Public Works school in the county. A plaque in the school's main hall identifies the building as a project of the Federal Works Agency, Public Works Administration and includes the names John M. Carmody, Federal Works Agency and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States." Also, according to the school's history page (https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/westbrookes/about/westbrookhistory.aspx) Westbrook was built with the assistance of WPA labor."

The WPA allocated $149,064.73 to conduct repairs along Westchester Avenue in the Bronx during the 1930s. They conducted work specifically along the 0.6-mile stretch of the avenue between Metcalf Ave. and Grant Circle. WPA Official Project No. 65-97-442.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted a massive improvement and development project at what was then a municipal airport (now Westerly State Airport), in Westerly, Rhode Island. Description: "Excavate, grade, surface runways install lighting and drainage at the Westerly Airport." WPA Project No. 165‐1‐16‐135; $1,149,411. Sponsor: State of Rhode Island

"Simpkins Hall is located just west of Sherman Hall, on the campus of Western Illinois University, and opened in 1939.   The building at that time was called the “Training School” or “Lab School.”  It was here that Western student teachers, under supervision, practiced teaching in classrooms with actual students.  It served as a training school, until the school moved to Horrabin Hall in 1968.  Today Simpkins Hall houses the Department of English and Journalism. ...What is historically unique about the construction of Simpkins Hall is that it was built during the Great Depression, a time when unemployment was rampant and construction...