Auxiliary Federal Facilities Sites

The Angeles National Forest Headquarters in Arcadia, CA, was the former site of a Department of Agriculture warehouse constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Built with $4,834 in federal funds and $1,973 in sponsor contributions, the seven-month project employed an average of 29 men per month. It is unclear if the warehouse is extant.

Description from General Services Administration Web site: "The Central Heating Plant in Washington, D.C. was designed by the architect Paul Philippe Cret for the Procurement Division of the U.S. Treasury Department. The project was managed by James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect and Louis Simon, architect, both of the Procurement Divison. The cornerstone was laid in 1933, construction was completed and the plant commenced operation in 1934. The work of an important American architect whose aesthetic philosophies significantly affected Federal design, and as a carefully conceived and well-executed example of the Art Deco style, the Central Heating Plant is a significant...

The old downtown post office and federal building in Long Beach, CA, was built in large part under the New Deal, contrary to the date and name on the cornerstone. The building was planned and started under the Hoover Administration and the cornerstone laid in late 1932, but before construction was far along, the Long Beach earthquake hit in March 1933. There is some dispute over whether the quake did major damage to the unfinished structure.  Certainly, everything had to be checked out and some damaged material removed before construction could resume.  The building opened in September 1934. The design is Classical...

The Federal Building in Clarksville, Tennessee—originally constructed as a post office, was constructed during the Great Depression with Treasury Department funds. The design of the United States Post Office for Clarksville was released April 19, 1935, to be located on the corner of Legion and Second streets. The front of the building is marble, with brick sides with marble trim. Six partial columns extend across the front, spaced between windows/center door, and light posts are on either side of the door on short columns. The lobby floor was marble. Two murals were installed in the building, in 1938, painted by F....

The Federal Office Building at 90 Church Street was constructed between 1934 and 1935 by the Treasury Department Public Buildings Bureau, and includes the Church Street Station Post Office. A multi-story addition on top of the building was completed a few years later. It occupies the entire city block bounded by between Church Street and West Broadway and Vesey and Barclay Streets. The architecture spans neo-Classical and Art Deco styles and was designed by a team of Cross & Cross, Pennington, Lewis & Mills, under the direction of Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury.  The...

In 1935, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers stationed in the Bridger-Teton National Forest constructed three buildings for the Hoback Guard Station: an office/dwelling, a shed, and a garage.  There is a fourth building on the site that is not CCC. The CCC buildings were constructed with an architectural style typical of CCC workmanship, with notched logs and square floor plans. All of the buildings remain in use by the U.S. Forest Service with minimal physical alterations. The central office/dwelling is available to the public for short-term rentals and overnight stays.  

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews from the Chimney Park Camp (F-17-W) in Laramie, Wyoming constructed two log structures for the Keystone Work Center from 1939 to 1942. Located on the southeastern slopes of Wyoming’s Medicine Bow Mountain Range, the Keystone Work Center was originally developed as a forest ranger station before becoming a larger workspace for the U.S. Forest Service. The structures represent a distinctive building style of the CCC, with saddle-notched logs and a wood shingled roof. The site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

"This building, which was built in 1938 as a post office in the New Deal project, PWA (Public Works Administration), is the home of a beautiful Peter Hurd mural which is on the front exterior of the building. In Alamogordo, under the Art-in-Architecture program titled, 'Sun and Rain,' Peter Hurd painted one of New Mexico's most beautiful frescos in 1942, around the entrance to the building. The central part of the fresco is flanked by two smaller frescos, 'Sorghum' and Yucca.'" The structure is now a county building in Alamogordo. -Treasures on New Mexico Trails

The Public Works Administration funded the construction of the Office and Warehouse for Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Mojave District Headquarters. The DWP's Mojave District was responsible for operations and maintenance of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in the Mojave desert area, between Los Angeles and the Owens Valley. The building is a fine example of the "PWA Moderne" style.

Originally constructed as Treasury Department project and completed in 1935, Philadelphia's large Art Deco 30th St. post office served the community for many years, before being left vacant in 2006. It has since been converted into a modern office building. "In redeveloping the 862,692-square-foot Art Deco style federal building, Brandywine embraced and rejuvenated its pre-Columbian art and architecture-inspired highlights. The Post Office’s ornate public lobby, known as the "Historic Corridor", featuring two entry rotundas with mosaic domes in a Mayan motif, has been fully restored. The domes, each with 99,816 pieces of glass faience tiles in nine different shades of green...

The Mount Shasta Ranger Station was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1935 in classic rustic park style.  The original Ranger Station consists of several buildings, including the main office/visitors' center, timber management office, guest house and auxiliary buildings – which remain in pristine condition. The ranger station was the headquarters of the Shasta National Forest (1905) until it was unified with the Trinity National Forest in 1950. It is now one of four management units of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, whose headquarters is in Redding.  A sister station is located in McCloud CA. A relief map of the Shasta-Trinity area hangs...

Works Progress Administration (WPA) project cards for 1938 at the National Archives indicate that the WPA was charged with making improvements to the grounds, buildings, and distribution systems at the U.S. Naval Observatory.  Photograph cards on file at the archives show a storage shed overhauled by the WPA and that WPA workers also led tours of the observatory at the time. The Navy's Bulletin #38 notes that, "At the Naval Observatory only limited funds have been available and they have been expended for repairs to buildings including the modernization of dangerous electric wiring. The available funds have also been used for the...

President Franklin Roosevelt created Patuxent Research Refuge (PRR) with Executive Order 7514, December 16, 1936, and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace dedicated it on June 3, 1939.  The refuge began with 2,670 acres and has since grown to 12,841 acres. It is “the nation's only national wildlife refuge established to support wildlife research” (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). Several New Deal agencies helped to build the extensive facilities at the Patuxent Research Refuge. At the time, wildlife refuges came under the direction of the Bureau of Biological Survey (later merged into the Fish & Wildlife Service).  The Works Progress Administration (WPA)...

The Soldiers' Home was established in 1851, as an "asylum for old and disabled veterans." Four of the original buildings still stand and are listed as national historic landmarks.  The U.S. Soldiers' and Airmen's Home remains a thriving community of military retirees and veterans in the heart of Washington DC. In 1934, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) reconstructed and repaired buildings and machinery at the site, did general landscaping and painting, built two storehouses, tiled the milk house and built roads, according to records at the National Archives In 1938-39, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) did extensive work at the facility. WPA records...