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  • Angel Mounds Archaeological Excavation - Evansville IN
    From April 1939 until May 1942, 277 men worked for the WPA at the Angel Mounds Site near Evansville, Indiana under the direction of Glenn A. Black, archaeologist for the Indiana Historical Society. During the project over 2 million artifacts were recovered from the site. The artifacts that were recovered from the WPA excavations as well as the documentary archives and photographs are currently located on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus in the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology.
  • Archeological Work - Montezuma Castle National Monument AZ
    The Civilian Conservation Corps' Indian Division (CCC-ID) did archeological excavation and stabilization work at several sites of ancient indigenous ruins across Arizona in the 1930s.  A Navajo Indian CCC mobile unit was formed under a joint program between the Park Service and the Indian Service (later the Bureau of Indian Affairs) to work under the supervision of an archeologist on stabilization work on pre-Columbian ruins in Chaco Canyon, Navajo, Tonto, Wupatki, Aztec Ruins, Montezuma Castle, and Gran Quivira national monuments (Paige 1985, p. ?) It is likely that CCC enrollees also built the main visitor trail at the monument, but that needs...
  • Archeological Work - Walnut Canyon National Monument AZ
    Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from the Mt. Elden Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp near Flagstaff worked at Walnut Canyon National Monument from 1938 to 1942.  One part of their work was assisting with the stabilization and restoration of dwelling units in the cliffs of Walnut Canyon.  Walnut Canyon is an important site of cliff dwellings left by the Sinagua people, who occupied the site c. 1125-1250 C.E.  There are a couple hundred dwelling units tucked into the cliffs on both sides of the canyon, but the focus of the archeological work was along the Island Trail, which the CCC built...
  • Aztec Ruins National Monument - Aztec NM
    The complex in Aztec Ruins National Monument consists of a "three-story structure as many as 500 rooms, includ a great kiva that is more than forty feet across." The name "Aztec" is a misnomer as the original excavators believed that the structures were from that tribe. In fact, "The pueblo dates from approximately A.D. 1100." In the winter of 1933-34, workers for the Civil Works Administration (CWA) built "an entrance road, a parking area, and general clean-up." Also in 1934, Public Works Administration (PWA) workers rebuilt some of the original structure as workers "dismantled the walls and relaid the masonry"...
  • Besh-Ba-Gowah Archaeological Park - Globe AZ
    "The park contains remains from a prehistoric communal dwelling constructed by the Salado people. The site was inhabited from 1225 to 1400 A.D. Irene Vickrey conducted the first formal archaeological investigation starting in 1935. Funding for her salary and her laborers came from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and later the Works Progress Administration. She and her workmen excavated over 200 rooms and 350 burial sites. Vickrey worked on the excavation until January 1946. Her cause of death was due to heart failure due to a long term health condition. Her death left the excavations incomplete and her results unpublished. The...
  • CCC Improvements - Big Bend National Park TX
    From Our Mark on This Land (2011): "If you have driven, hiked, or slept in the Chisos Mountains, you have experienced CCC history. In May 1933, Texas Canyons State Park was established; it was later renamed Big Bend State Park. Roads and trails were needed for the new park, and the CCC provided an ideal workforce. A year after the park was established, 200 young men, 80 percent of whom were Hispanic, arrived to work in the Chisos Mountains. The CCC's first job was to set up camp and develop a reliable water supply. The CCC boys faced many challenges, living...
  • Coastal Archaeological Expedition - St. Simons Island GA
    The WPA financed Preston Holders "excavations of prehistoric and early contact Indian sites on the Georgia Coast, from Savannah to St. Simons Island, between April 1936 and February 1938... "Excavations on St. Simons Island and Vicinity, 1936-1937," which is familiar to Coastal archaeologists, provides a brief and accurate description of his excavations on St. Simons Island at the Airport (Site I), the Sea Island Mound (II), the Charlie King Mound (III), and Gascoigne Bluff (IV), with a progress report on Cannon's Point (V). Less well known are the further details of his work at Cannon's Point, of his two-month excavations at...
  • Colonial National Historical Park - Yorktown VA
    Colonial National Historical Park (CNHP) was created by Congress and President Herbert Hoover in 1930 and consists primarily of the Yorktown Battlefield, the historic Jamestown Settlement, and Colonial Parkway. Several federal agencies participated in its development. The National Park Service (NPS) provided general supervision of the entire historic site project after it was given responsibility for all historic battlefields by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Public Works Administration (PWA) contributed at least $600,000 (and probably much more) in funding. Relief agencies provided labor power: the Civil Works Administration (CWA) worked over the winter of 1933-1934 (probably for mosquito control and general...
  • Colonial National Historical Park: Archeology - Yorktown VA
    Colonial National Historical Park (CNHP) was created by Congress and President Herbert Hoover in 1930 and consists primarily of the Yorktown Battlefield, the historic Jamestown Settlement, and Colonial Parkway. Several federal agencies participated in its development. The National Park Service (NPS) provided general supervision of the entire historic site project after it was given responsibility for all historic battlefields by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Public Works Administration (PWA) contributed at least $600,000 (and probably much more) in funding. Relief agencies provided labor power: the Civil Works Administration (CWA) worked over the winter of 1933-1934 (probably for mosquito control and general...
  • Dinosaur Quarry Expansion - Jensen UT
    The Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted work at Dinosaur National Monument at the site that is now a part of the Quarry Exhibit Hall near Jensen, Utah.  Relief workers expanded the quarry face where abundant dinosaur fossils had been discovered in 1909 by Earl Douglass, a paleontologist collecting for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. President Woodrow Wilson declared the original acre fossil site to be a National Monument in 1915 and President Franklin Roosevelt expanded the monument to its present size in 1938.  The monument contains over 800 paleontological sites. We are uncertain of the exact dates of the WPA work. UEN.org: "The...
  • Eastern New Mexico State Park (former) - Portales NM
    The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed the former Eastern New Mexico State Park, occasionally referred to as "Blackwater Draw Park", ca. 1934-6. Flynn: "This CCC-built site was originally created to reforest 9,600 acres of that Dust Bowl area. Later the state government reduced the amount of acreage to 400. The CCC built a large bath house, other houses, camping areas and a lake. All but one long house near the highway remains and was most likely the home for the park manager. In 1951 the state deeded the property to Eastern New Mexico University in Portales and they later built a large...
  • Excavation and Restoration - Wupatki National Monument AZ
    Archaeological excavation and restoration of the prehistoric settlement at Wupatki began in 1933 under the guidance of Harold Colton, founder and director of the Museum of Northern Arizona.  In the winter of 1933-34 Civil Works Administration (CWA) provided the relief labor to continue excavation and restoration.  Next came a Navajo Indian CCC mobile unit formed under a joint program between the Park Service and the Indian Service (later the Bureau of Indian Affairs) to do stabilization work on indigenous ruins in Chaco Canyon, Navajo, Tonto, Aztec Ruins, Montezuma Castle, and Gran Quivira national monuments, as well as Wupatki (Paige 1985, Ch...
  • Fort Bridger Restoration - Fort Bridger WY
    Between 1935 and 1938, the WPA performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site. From the Bridger Valley Pioneer: One of the Valley projects funded by WPA was the artesian well in Fort Bridger. It still runs today, but sits in a sad state of disrepair. A local group, the Fort Bridger Beautification Committee working as a state centennial committee approached the Uinta County Commissioners to be able to improve the lot and make the well site a nice area for the community. The committee even received state grant to improve a small portion of the available property....
  • Fort Caspar Restoration - Casper WY
    The Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site. Casper Star-Tribune, 1934: "Dedication of the new traps today at the Izaak Walton league park near the old site of Fort Caspar will afford the Casper public opportunity to view extensive Improvement work carried on there for several months as a CWA project. Progress made in construction of a spacious, rustic lodge of logs, and a fence of the same material, and the planting of hundreds of trees and shrubs will be open to inspection. When...
  • Fort Gibson Restoration - Fort Gibson OK
    Between 1935 and 1939, the WPA performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site.  
  • Fort Hawkins Restoration - Macon GA
    Between 1935 and 1938, the WPA performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site. From Wikipedia: From 1928, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Macon Kiwanis Club raised funds to create a replica of one of the blockhouses to memorialize the fort. In 1933 the government began archaeological excavations at the Ocmulgee Old Fields, supported by workers and funding of the US Works Progress Administration (WPA) under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. In 1936, one of the archaeologists, Gordon R. Willey, did enough work at Fort Hawkins to establish the original "footprint" of the...
  • Fort Holmes Restoration - Mackinac Island MI
    The WPA conducted extensive restoration work on this site. According to Frank Straus: “The second cycle began in the summer of 1936, when the Works Progress Administration rebuilt Fort Holmes, using an 1817 engineer’s detailed drawing and elevation of the original redoubt. The federal agency, operating with a workforce encamped on the northern side of the Island at the site of the current solid waste transfer station, raised a new blockhouse, re-dug the ditch, piled up soil for a new embankment, and lined the outward walls of the embankment with cedar logs to rebuild the palisade.”
  • Fort Humboldt Restoration - Eureka CA
    Fort Humboldt in southwest Eureka, California, was a military outpost that helped secure northwest California for miners, settlers and the US government, from 1853 to 1867, when it was abandoned.  It began to be seen as worthy of recognition and salvage in the early 20th century as a triumphant landmark of Anglo conquest (a history much in question today by the region's native peoples). Works Progress Administration (WPA) crews of relief workers conducted extensive renovations to Fort Humboldt between 1935 and 1938.  This came after a concerted lobbying effort by local veterans' organizations, which had begun the restoration work on their...
  • Fort Jefferson Renovations, Dry Tortugas National Park - Key West FL
    Between 1935 and 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site, a remote historic fort 68 miles west of Key West on Bush Key. In 1992, it became a part of Dry Tortugas National Park.  
  • Fort Loudoun - Vonore TN
    Fort Loudoun was in operation from 1756 to 1760, when it was captured by the Cherokee. It fell to ruin until 1917 when it was recognized as an historic site. In 1933, the Tennessee General Assembly purchased the fort and created the Fort Loudoun Association, which managed it until the Tennessee State Parks purchased it in 1977. From 1935 to 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook restoration and archaeological work under the "Fort Loudoun Restoration Project," with plans to reconstruct the fort "as based on historical and archeological research." (wikipedia)
  • Fort Niagara Restoration - Youngstown NY
    The WPA performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site in 1937.    
  • Fort Recovery Restoration and Museum - Fort Recovery OH
    WPA crews rebuilt historic Fort Recovery between 1935 and 1939. The fort was originally built in 1794 on the site where Army General Arthur St. Clair was roundly defeated by the armies of a confederation of Miami and Shawnee Native Americans. The fort was memorialized in 1910, and a museum opened on the site in 1938. From the National Archives file: “They also built, for use as a museum, a replica of the log cabin occupied by General St. Clair on his arrival there in 1791, and in addition constructed a modern library building.”
  • Fort Sisseton Restoration - Lake City SD
    WPA crews conducted restoration work at the site between 1935 and 1938. From the Library of Congress: "In 1937, the fort was restored as a WPA project. It has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, but today is in great need of additional need of repair and structural work."  
  • George C. Davis Site Archaeological Excavation - Alto TX
    For two years, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), under the leadership of University of Texas at Austin archaeologists, excavated an area known as the George C. Davis Site (41CE19). The site yielded artifacts from the Caddoan Mississippian culture that existed there from 800 A.D. to 1300 A.D. The archaeologists also found artifacts from the Spanish colonial era in Texas (1690-1821 A.D.) as the site was along the El Camino Real de los Tejas. The artifacts are held by the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. The official WPA project number was 65-1-66-2594. The George C. Davis...
  • Kinishba Ruins National Historic Landmark - Fort Apache AZ
    "Kinishba Ruins was constructed by the Pueblo people and occupied as early as 800 until as late as 1400 A.D. Byron Cummings, director of the Arizona State Museum, and his students began excavation and reconstruction of Kinishba in 1931. In 1934 Cummings requested funds from the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division to hire 25 local Apache laborers. Between 1934 and 1937 Kinishba also served as an archaeological field school where Cummings trained more than 70 students. In 1938 and 1939 Cummings and Apache enrollees continued to excavate and restore the ruins; they also constructed a small museum and residence. Cummings hoped...
  • La Fortaleza (Governor's Mansion) Renovations - San Juan PR
    The work relief division of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) conducted "extensive repairs to the patio" of La Fortaleza, the 16th Century governor's mansion in San Juan, capitol of the territory of Puerto Rico, ca. 1937. In 1940-1 the Work Projects Administration (W.P.A.) conducted extensive restoration work on La Fortaleza. Improvements included utilities upgrades, new roof, replacement of floor and ceiling beams, elevator installation, modern bathtubs & showers installation, and more.
  • Lake Ilo National Wildlife Refuge - Dunn Center ND
    Lake Ilo National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1939 by Executive Order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (which wikipedia incorrectly calls an act of Congress in 1938).  The land was purchased and administered by the Bureau of Biological Survey (which morphed into the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1940). The region was one of the last parts of the country to be settled by farmers and before long the area suffered from drought and dust storms like much of the rest of the Great Plains in the 1930s. In 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) help the locals realize their plan to...
  • Leo Petroglyphs and Nature Preserve - Leo OH
    The park features a Works Progress Administration (WPA) shelter protecting sandstone petroglyphs. The petroglyphs are thought to have been created by the Fort Ancient people. The WPA completed other work at the site.
  • Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum - Rockport IN
    WPA workers developed the Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum from 1935 to 1936. Work also included landscaping and the building of cabins and a lake. From the State of Indiana's website on the attraction: "The Lincoln Pioneer Village & Museum houses hundreds of fascinating artifacts from the area’s historic past including a hutch made by Abraham Lincoln’s father, Thomas Lincoln. The Pioneer Village features 14 Lincoln-era replica cabins from Spencer County. This site was originally a WPA project." From the Evansville Sunday Courier and Journal, July 5, 1936: ROCKPORT, July 4—With both the democratic and republican nominees for governor on the program,...
  • Lost City Archeaological Excavations - Moapa Valley NV
    “The Boulder City and Overton Camps are probably best known for their involvement in salvage archaeology, most notably excavations at Lost City in the lower Moapa Valley. The rising Lake Mead threatened a number of important archeological sites along the terraces overlooking the Muddy River. One well-publicized project was at Lost City, a five-mile stretch of Puebloan settlements that were soon to be inundated by Lake Mead. In a race against time, Nevada and NPS officials mobilized the young and energetic labor force and resumed the excavation at Lost City.” --The Civilian Conservation Corps in Nevada
  • Mansfield State Historic Site - Mansfield LA
    According to National Archive files, between 1935 and 1938 WPA crews "landscaped the battleground, installed drains and built drives through the historic site."
  • Meteor Crater Excavations - Odessa TX
    Multiple websites report an unusual WPA project that took place in rural Texas: "Archeological digs employed WPA labor, including excavation at the site of the Odessa meteor crater in Ector County, Texas." (Marist) "nterest swelled after a theory was put forth that the meteor responsible for the impact was more than 500 feet wide and was very likely buried beneath the surface. In 1939, the state, the county, the University of Texas and the Works Progress Administration combined forces to locate the specimen." (Weird U.S.) "To explore the Odessa meteor crater, WPA crews constructed an 8' by 12' wooden lined shaft 165 feet...
  • Moundville Archaeological Park Museum - Moundville AL
    "Opened and dedicated on May 16, 1939 at what was then known as “Mound State Monument,” built with labor from the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1999, The University of Alabama Museums began a comprehensive effort to rebuild and redefine the museum, resulting in a $5 million renovation completed in 2010. Today, the museum combines the latest technology with more than 200 stunning artifacts to describe one of the most significant Native American archaeological sites in the United States. Outside, visitors are greeted by symbols of the Native American culture mounted on enormous wooden heraldic poles. Inside, visitors will find life-size...
  • Ocmulgee National Monument - Macon GA
    Numerous New Deal agencies had a tremendous impact on the development of Ocmulgee National Monument, the site of pre-Columbian southeastern settlement dating back millennia. "The largest dig ever conducted in this country occurred here at Ocmulgee and the surrounding area. Between 1933 and 1936, over 800 men in Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (ERA & FERA) and later the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) excavated under the direction of Dr. Arthur R. Kelly from the Smithsonian Institute. Kelly was the only archaeologist at the Ocmulgee camp and conducted evening training courses for the men....
  • Palaeontological Excavation - Bandera TX
    The Works Progress Administration supported Paleontologist Roland T. Bird in the excavation of Sauropod footprints near West Verde Creek in southern Bandera County, Texas. The workers cleaned out the tracks and removed debris from the excavation area. The project number was 665-66-3-233.
  • Pictograph Cave State Park - Billings MT
    Formerly known as 'The Indian Caves' or 'The Indian Ghost Caves' around Billings, MT, this pre-historic site has become one of the most visited state parks in Montana. Artifacts dating back several thousand years were found here in 1937. A professional excavation was overseen by William Mulloy and Larry Loendorf with work performed by the Works Progress Administration workers. Over 30,000 artifacts were recovered, but many of them lost as the site was abandoned by the WPA in 1941. Pictographs are what the site is known for today; of the 106 originally recorded images, about 10-20 are visible today. The...
  • Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument Improvements - Mountainair NM
    Declared in 1909 the Gran Quivira National Monument, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) repaired and stabilized this 17th century site between 1934 and 1937, renaming it the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
  • San Juan National Historic Site: Casa Blanca Historical Monument and Museum - San Juan PR
    Between 1935 and 1939, WPA crews conducted historic restoration and renovation work at this site, Casa-Torre de Ponce de León, built in 1521 for the notoriously brutal conquistador who died before ever occupying the residence. It is better known as Casa Blanca, or "White House." WPA work included roof repairs, installation of lighting, and creation of a garden. It now houses a museum with information about early colonial life on the island.  
  • San Juan National Historic Site: Castillo de San Cristóbal Restoration - San Juan PR
    WPA crews conducted extensive renovation and restoration work at this 18th century Spanish fort, including repair of the fortress walls, and cleaning, repairing, and lighting tunnels under the fortress, in order to facilitate tourism.  
  • San Juan National Historic Site: Castillo San Felipe del Morro Restoration - San Juan PR
    Between 1935 and 1939, WPA crews conducted extensive historic restoration and renovation work, including restoration of the fortress walls, at this site, a 16th century fort later used as a military site during WWII.
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