Archaeology and History Sites

This house "was built in 1765 by Roger Morris, a British military officer, and served as a headquarters for both sides in the American Revolution" (wikipedia). It was declared a national landmark in 1961 and is now a house museum. The WPA photos pictured here show that the Jumel mansion was restored with New Deal assistance in the 1930s.

On the Marshall County Courthouse grounds the two sided marker lists one theme per side. The West Virginia historical marker program began in 1934 with the beginning research for the markers with the intention of placing markers around the state to encourage tourism. Dr. Roy Bird Cook, a Charleston druggist, a longtime commission member, and a vocational historian worked on the project. Approximately 5,000 sites were collected with 440 markers selected by the commission for placement. Most of these along 44 state and federal highways. The funds came from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Works Progress Administration. In addition to the...

"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...

Newton Friends Meeting House in Camden, New Jersey was the city's first house of worship. According to the Federal Writers' Project: "Built in 1801 on ground donated by Joseph Kaighn, was the first house of worship in Camden. It is a two-and-one-half-story rectangular building, of post-Colonial design, constructed of red brick with white trim. Quakers met here until 1915. In 1935 the building was restored with PWA funds under the direction of the Camden County Historical Society and is now used by the city for storage."

"Norris Dam State Park is a state park in Anderson County and Campbell County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park is situated along the shores of Norris Lake, an impoundment of the Clinch River created by the completion of Norris Dam in 1936. The park consists of 4,038 acres (16.34 km2) managed by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. The east section of Norris Dam State Park was developed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps as a "demonstration recreational project" of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The CCC built a lodge, several rustic cabins, and an amphitheater. The...

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....

"Sites of WPA projects to preserve historic shrines include ... City Gates, St. Augustine, Florida."

"Sites of WPA projects to preserve historic shrines include ... Old Court House, Delaware." Now the New Castle Court House Museum.

"Careful research has been done and is continuing and the whole restoration is by no means complete. The part undertaken with P.W.A. aid was completed in July 1938 at a construction cost of $32,164 and a project cost of $37,175."

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided funds for the restoration of the Old State Bank building on Wilson Street in 1936. The building then became known as Leila Cantwell Seton Hall, though that designation has been largely dropped.

The W.P.A. conducted restoration and preservation work at the Old State House in Boston, Massachusetts.

On the east corner of Staunton Avenue and 7th Street in Parkersburg, Wood County, West Virginia (New Deal Era US 21, US 50 and WV 2) is the New Deal Highway Maker. In the same location there are two non-New Deal markers -- The Toll House which was marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1925. This site was also marked with a Old Tollgate House State Historical marker in 1965 for the Old Toll House. The West Virginia historical marker program began in 1934 with the beginning research for the markers with the intention of placing markers around...

The Old Windmill in Eastham, Massachusetts, which dates to 1793, was "restored by a Works Progress Administration Project in 1936."

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.

Formerly known as Stuyvesant Square, the park in which this statue sits was renamed Cooper Square after Peter Cooper, a 19th century industrialist and philanthropist. As the NYC Parks site documents: “Following Cooper’s death in 1883, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), the preeminent 19th century sculptor and one of the earliest alumni of Cooper Union (class of 1864), was commissioned to design a monument in honor of the great visionary. Saint-Gaudens collaborated with the renowned architect Stanford White (1853–1906) who created the piece’s marble and granite canopy… In 1935, coinciding with reconstruction of the park, the newly created Parks Monuments Crew, with funding from...

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...

"Captain Lemuel Moody (1768-1846) ordered construction of this octagonal, 86-foot high tower to serve as a communication station for Portland’s bustling harbor. In 1807, ships entering the harbor could not be seen from the docks of Portland until they rounded the point at Spring Point Ledge. With his powerful telescope, Moody, sea captain turned entrepreneur, identified incoming vessels as far away as 30 miles. For a fee, he alerted subscribing merchants by hoisting signal flags identifying their vessels. He coined the phrase “signalizing” to describe the system. The Observatory was built on Munjoy Hill at the eastern end of the Portland...

The former Presbytère or Rectory of the late 18th century St. Louis Cathedral is now part of the Louisiana State Museum complex, along with the old Cabildo Building.  The Cabildo flanks St. Louis on the west and the Presbytère on the east, along the north side of Jackson Square along Chartres Street.  The Presbytère was begun in 1891 and only finished thirty years later, and never served its intended purpose.  It was rented and then sold to the City of New Orleans for use as a courthouse and then transferred to the Louisiana State Museum in 1911 (see plaque). The Presbytère...

In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) rebuilt a portion of the Presidio de San Saba, but due to poor workmanship, it soon fell into ruins. A WPA project rebuilt a portion of the fort for the Texas Centennial in 1936, and today it is open to the public. The restored Presidio we see today is from 2011, not 1937 (per information board photo #5).

"Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126." (wikipedia) In 1936, the CCC Indian Division (CCC-ID) began an important ruins restoration project. The prehistoric city of Pueblo Bonito had suffered from extreme weather and temperature.  Native Indian workers in the CCC replaced walls and veneer to stabilize the area.The city remains an important site today.

Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was thoroughly restored in the 1930s under the guidance of Father John Hartnett, after a long history of neglect.  A previous rebuild in 1868 had added wooden siding and a wooden tower in New England style.  That was removed in 1934 and the mission was restored to a semblance of its original appearance (uncertain after many transformations). A stone wall was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) on the west side of the mission along Palm Street and up the southwest side of the mission along Broad Street, effectively supporting the exterior wall of...

The Firemen's Memorial facing Riverside Park on Riverside Drive at 100th Street, 1913. The NY City Parks Department website says: The memorial exemplifies a classical grandeur that characterized several civic monuments built in New York City from the 1890s to World War I, as part of an effort dubbed the City Beautiful Movement, which was meant to improve the standard of urban public design and achieve an uplifting union of art and architecture. This monument has twice undergone extensive restoration, once in the late 1930s, through a W.P.A.-sponsored conservation program, and more recently through a $2 million city-funded capital project completed...

A great number of improvements to the General Grant National Memorial ("Grant's Tomb") were undertaken by the WPA between 1935 and 1939. As the National Park Service's David Kahn (1980) explains: "Thirty-eight years after the tomb opened, the initial restoration project began in December 1935, when the Works Progress Administration's laborers laid down new marble flooring in the atrium. In 1935-39 WPA cleaned marble (interior and exterior), replaced floors, replaced roof, electric lighting, heating, built curator's office, new stained glass, painted over dirty plaster walls, screens, display racks, brass sculptured busts of five Union generals by WPA artists, installation of eagles...

"The Joan of Arc statue on Riverside Drive at 93rd Street, by Anna Vaugh Hyatt Huntington, dedicated in 1915. In 1939, the statue was repatined, its broken sword restored, and its staircase repaired. As noted in references below, this was done by the Parks Department Monuments Restoration Project which was part of the WPA."   (kermitproject.org)

The Works Progess Administration (WPA) did landscape cleanup around Fort DeRussy in Rock Creek Park.  Crews removed underbrush, poisonous plants, and dead trees from the old earthworks, which were then (and are now) heavily forested. Fort DeRussy is a Civil War-era fortification constructed in 1861 on a hilltop on the west side of Rock Creek, as part of the defenses of Washington. It is a trapezoidal earthwork with a perimeter of 190 yards and places for 13 guns. It is maintained today by the National Park Service. 

The New Deal contributed substantially to the betterment of Rock Creek Park in the 1930s.  This involved a number of federal agencies. Rock Creek Park is a key greenway in the District of Columbia and, at 1750 acres, is almost twice the size of Central Park in New York.  It was established by Congress in 1890, making it officially a National Park at the time.  It featured prominently in the far-reaching plans for the District of Columbia by the McMillan Commission in 1901-02 and the Olmsted Brothers report of 1918, which envisioned a major park with a scenic parkway running through it. In...

The National Park Service, which took over command of the Capitol Parks system in 1934, restored the old Pierce Mill in Rock Creek Park in 1935-36 with the aid of a grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA) of $26,614 and labor of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees.  The project was completed in March 1936. The old mill building was constructed in 1810 of native split stone taken from a nearby quarry.  It is 50 by 40 feet in size. One gable is stone and the other wood frame.  The floors are wide oak plank and the roofing is wood shingles....

The Works Progress Administration restored the Rockingam Meeting House in Rockingam. It was nominated the the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

The W.P.A. conducted restoration and preservation work at Rockingham, the house at which George Washington "wrote his farewell address to the army."

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.

This chapel was originally a house, built in 1850, and converted into a chapel in 1858. In 1937, San Diego's streets were realigned and the chapel was bulldozed. The WPA rebuilt the chapel that same year on an adjacent site, using parts of the original Chapel, such as the tabernacle, the altar, woodwork, pews, confessional and doors. In restoring the chapel, WPA workers made the bricks by hand.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) completed improvements at the San Jose de los Jemez Mission in Jemez Springs NM. The San Jose de los Jemez Mission is a mission compound for the Jemez Pueblo, established by the Catholic Church and the Spanish, rebuilt in 1621-1626. The initial excavation of the San Jose de los Jemez mission church began in 1921 and 1922, then advanced by the CCC in the late 1930s. The mission church and surrounding excavated structures are are part of the Jemez pueblo.

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.  

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.  

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.

This park commemorates the first major American victory of the Revolutionary War in 1777. "Establishment of a national park to commemorate the Saratoga battles, authorized by Congress in 1938,  came about largely due to the direction provided by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The National Park Service accepted 1,430 acres from New York  State, although the area remained under state  administration. A Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was established at the park in 1939.  Although the program by then was past its peak and was terminated in 1942 due to U.S. participation in World War II, the CCC performed the first methodical...

In 1938, the Civilian Conservation Corps developed the Saxman Totem Park. The program was part of a larger U.S. Forest Service effort to employ Alaska Natives and conserve totems and Native cultural assets. Many of the poles that the CCC recovered from abandoned villages were found in an advanced state deterioration, which made conservation difficult. While restoration was the preferred approach, the CCC often opted for recarving, or partial recarving, if the pole could not be salvaged. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The master carver at Saxman was Charlie Brown. The park was designed along...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) relocated the Dogfish Pole, also called the Chief Ebbits Pole, from a village in Southeast Alaska to the newly established Saxman Totem Park. The totem was erected in 1892 in memory of Chief Ebbits, head chief of the Tongass, at Old Tongass Village. The CCC set up a totem restoration project in 1938 and Tlingit carvers enrolled in the CCC lead the work. In the 1961 volume, The Wolf and the Raven, anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest describe the visual characteristics of the Dogfish Pole: “The contrast in appearance between an unpainted and a painted pole was...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) relocated the Giant Rock Oyster Pole from a village in Southeast Alaska to the newly established Saxman Totem Park. The CCC set up a totem restoration project in 1938 and Tlingit carvers enrolled in the CCC lead the work. In the 1961 volume, The Wolf and the Raven, anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest describe the visual characteristics of the Giant Rock Oyster Pole: "On the Giant Rock Oyster pole are carved the emblems of four related house groups of the Nexadi clan, descendants of Eagle Claw House, whose crest appears at the top of the pole. The human...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) relocated the Kats and His Bear Wife totem from a village in Southeast Alaska to the newly established Saxman Totem Park. The CCC set up a totem restoration project in 1938 and Tlingit carvers enrolled in the CCC lead the work. In the 1961 volume, The Wolf and the Raven, anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest describe the visual characteristics of the Kats and His Bear Wife totem: "The carving of Kats and His Bear Wife was set against the center of the front of a tribal house, framing the entrance. It was used only on special occasions, as...