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  • Abingdon Plantation Historic Site Restoration - Arlington VA
    The Abingdon Plantation Historic Site is the birthplace of Nellie Custis (1779-1852), granddaughter of Martha Washington and step-granddaughter of George Washington. Following the death of her father (John Parke Custis) in 1781, Nelly and her brother, George Washington Parke Custis, moved to Mount Vernon and were raised by their grandparents. The historic site is located between the two large parking garages at Washington National Airport, in between Thomas Avenue and West Entrance Road, Arlington, Virginia. A Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) report describes the restoration work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934-35: “They landscaped the grounds and built a twenty-car parking...
  • Al Hayne Monument Restoration - Fort Worth TX
    The monument itself dates from 1893 but the original marble bust was replaced in 1934 by a bronze one sculpted by Evaline Sellors as a PWAP project. The curbing (reflecting pool) around the Al Hayne Monument is a CWA project: "The marble bust of Al Hayne, carved by Lloyd Bowman, was removed due to extreme deterioration, according to a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article from June, 1934. (Note: this is at odds with a Fort Worth oral tradition which holds that the Hayne bust was stolen). Fort Worth sculptor Evaline Sellors received a commission from the federally-funded Public Works of Art Project to sculpt...
  • Alamo Grounds Improvements - San Antonio TX
    Multiple New Deal agencies were involved with improving the grounds at the Alamo. A timeline mural board on the west side of the Alamo Museum indicates that "depression-era public works projects" built the walls that now encompass the grounds of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The Alamo is regarded as the "Shrine of Texas Liberty" due to its location of the famous battle within its perimeter during the Texas Revolution; however, it was originally the site of Mission San Antonio Valero which was moved here in 1724 after several previous locations in the area were not suitable. The New York Times...
  • Antietam National Battlefield - Sharpsburg MD
    The Battle of Antietam took place on September 17, 1862, and is known as the bloodiest day of the Civil War.  General George B. McClellan and his Union forces faced off against General Robert E. Lee and his Confederate Army at Sharpsburg, Maryland.  When the fighting was done, well over 3,500 men were dead, and another 19,000 wounded. Throughout the New Deal period, Antietam National Battlefield received a large amount of attention, funding, and work from the CWA, PWA, and WPA.  The CWA placed a historical survey group there, circa 1933-34; the PWA funded restoration of large buildings and monuments, such...
  • Atkinson Common Tower - Newburyport MA
    Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) co0nstructed a stately stone observation tower in Newburyport, Mass. WPA Bulletin: In the center of Atkinson Park, Newburyport, WPA workmen have constructed a fifty-foot, field-stone, observation tower. Surrounding grounds have been landscaped with grass, trees and shrubs.
  • Bly Ranger Station Compound - Bly OR
    “The Civilian Conservation Corps and local experienced men, under the supervision of the U.S. Forest Service, constructed the Bly Ranger Station compound between 1936 and 1942. The compound, made up of both administrative and residential buildings, continues to service and house employees of the Fremont National Forest to this day. The Bly Ranger Station compound is on the National Register of Historic Places (March 11, 1981). Historically and architecturally, the Bly Ranger Station compound is important to the community of Bly and to the residents of the Sprague River Valley. As administrative headquarters of the Bly Ranger District, it represents the...
  • Bronx River Soldier Restoration - Bronx NY
    During the last decade of the 1800s, John Grignola carved this granite statue of a Civil War Union soldier for Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. After years of neglect, WPA workers located the statue in the Bronx River, refurbished it, and moved it to another Bronx River location. According to New York City's Department of Parks & Recreation, the statue never made it into the Woodlawn Cemetery, either because it was damaged or because it was rejected by the cemetery. John B. Lazzari, owner of "a local tombstone quarry and monuments yard,"  purchased the statue and displayed "..it on his property on the west...
  • Bryant Park: Dodge Sculpture Restoration - New York NY
    "This bronze sculpture depicts William Earl Dodge (1805–1883), one of the founders of Phelps, Dodge, a leading mining company. Dodge helped organize the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in the United States and served as the president of the National Temperance Society from 1865 to 1883. John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910) sculpted the piece, which was donated by a committee of Dodge’s friends and acquaintances and dedicated October 22, 1885. Dodge is represented leaning on a podium while delivering a speech. The piece originally stood in Herald Square on a pedestal designed by Richard Morris Hunt (who designed the pedestal for...
  • Bryant Park: Shaw Lowell Fountain Restoration - New York NY
    The NYC Parks Department website explains that: "Architect Charles A. Platt (1861–1933) designed this elegant black granite ornamental fountain to commemorate social worker and reformer Josephine Shaw Lowell (1843–1905). Shaw, who is said to be the first woman to be honored by a major monument in New York City, was the first female member of the New York State Board of Charities, serving from 1876 to 1889. The Memorial Committee that worked to build the fountain originally wanted it placed in Corlear’s Hook Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, near where Shaw focused her energies. Instead, the fountain, with its 32-foot-wide...
  • Campbell County War Memorial - Jacksboro TN
    The Campbell County War Memorial was built by the National Youth Administration in 1938. The monument is shaped as a stone obelisk set on a base of stone infilled with earth. It is flanked by two World War I period cannons. A metal American Eagle rests on top of the memorial. The monument, sponsored by the American Legion and the Spanish-American War Veterans, was dedicated to the Campbell County troops who died in the Spanish American War and World War I.
  • Carl Schurz Memorial Restoration - New York NY
    The NYC Parks Department website explains: "This impressive monument to soldier, statesman and journalist Carl Schurz is the result of a collaboration between the distinguished sculptor Karl Bitter (1867–1915) and renowned architect Henry Bacon (1866–1924). Built in 1913, the monument consists of a full standing bronze portrait of Schurz in the center of a granite exedra (curved bench) with carved reliefs framed by two ornamental bronze luminaries. The entire monument is located within a large brick-paved plaza projecting from the promontory at Morningside Drive and West 116th Street. Other studio assistants and associates of Bitter may have worked on the side...
  • Casa Grande Ruins National Monument - Coolidge AZ
    Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge, Arizona, preserves an ancient Sonoran Desert people's farming community and "Great House."  One of the largest prehistoric structures ever built in North America, the purpose of the Casa Grande remains a mystery. Between 1937 and 1940 the CCC did extensive work in the area, including constructing a number of adobe park facilities. All of these structures remain in use today and are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. "y 1937 the park still did not have a maintenance and storage facility. For this large building project of the 1930s, Park Superintendent Frank...
  • CCC Camp Hart Mountain - Lakeview OR
    “A former CCC camp is located at the base of Hart Mountain. From this camp, Company 3442 carried out various projects, including fence construction and the installation of telephone lines. The remaining building was the camp infirmary. The CCC campsite will be developed as a campground in the future. Refuge personnel supervised the building of the existing refuge headquarters buildings and residences, which feature CCC-era stonework.” –“CCC Landmarks: Remembering the Past”
  • Central Park: 107th Infantry Memorial Restoration - New York NY
    The Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to restore the 107th Infantry Memorial at 5th Ave. and 67th St. in Central Park during the mid-1930s.
  • Chauncey Rose Memorial - Terre Haute IN
    An attraction at Fairbanks Park’s north end is the Chauncey Rose Memorial. Dedicated in the 1930s to Chauncey Rose, businessman and philanthropist, it was constructed using the columns and facade from the old post office building at Seventh and Cherry and built by Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor. Among other projects, Mr. Rose endowed the Rose Polytechic Institute, now Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Date on the dedication marker was, unfortunately, defaced by vandals.
  • Colón Park Monument - Aguada / Aguadilla PR
    Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) work relief division efforts included the reconstruction of an 1893 monument commemorating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing, at the site where he landed in 1493. The PRRA made improvements to what is now known as Colón Park, an area that lies just inside Municipio de Aguada, just outside Aguadilla. The monument resides inside a traffic circle within the park. A plaque faces north, and says the following (in Spanish as well as English): To Commemorate the Landing of Christopher Columbus on November 19, 1493. This monument was erected on November 19, 1893 by the Board of...
  • Columbus-Belmont State Park Anchor Stand - Columbus KY
    "The primary attraction in the park continues to be Polk's giant chain, which is estimated to have been over a mile long before flooding and erosion destroyed part of it. With an anchor weighing between four and six tons and each chain link being eleven inches (279 mm) long, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a stone monument to hold the chain in 1934."
  • Dongan Oak Monument - Brooklyn NY
    "One of several small monuments in the vicinity of what is known as the “Battle Pass” in Prospect Park, the Dongan Oak Monument commemorates events which took place in this area during the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776. During this significant battle of the Revolutionary War, a large white oak mentioned in 1685 in the patent of Governor Thomas Dongan (1634–1715), was cut down by Colonial soldiers and thrown across the road to impede the advance of the British army."   (www.nycgovparks.org) In the 1930s, the sculpture was restored with federal funding under Karl Gruppe, "chief sculptor of the...
  • Florida Keys Memorial - Islamorada FL
    Also known as the Hurricane Monument, this limestone monument marks the mass grave of the over 300 people killed in one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the Florida Keys in 1936. "Standing just east of U.S. 1 at mile marker 82 in Islamorada, near where Islamorada's post office stood, is a simple monument designed by the Florida Division of the Federal Art Project and constructed using Keys limestone ("keystone") by the Works Progress Administration. It was unveiled in 1937 with more than 4,000 people attending. A frieze depicts palm trees amid curling waves, fronds bent in the wind. In front...
  • Fort Brown - Brownsville TX
    In 1933 a Category 5 hurricane known as the 1933 Cuba destroyed a large part of Brownsville, Texas, and caused massive damages to Fort Brown, U.S. Army fort. During the New Deal, Fort Brown received funding and labor to make improvements to the fort and surrounding land. The Works Project Administration (WPA) authorized a $70,765 improvement program that employed 119 workers to improve landscaping, building river bank revetments, resurfacing roads, and doing a large amount of the work on fort buildings. The purpose behind the river bank revetments was to stabilize the Rio Grande riverbank in case of storms and to...
  • Fort Churchill Restoration - Lyon NV
    The Civilian Conservation (CCC) helped the National Park Service reconstruct Fort Churchill in the 1930s. Fort Churchill was an 1860s army post built along the Overland Emigrant Trail, which was abandoned in 1869 when its usefulness had passed. Afterward, it fell into ruin. “On behalf of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Senator McCarran and Congressman Scrugham secured a CCC camp to restore the historic site. During the summer and fall of 1935, Camp Fort Churchill constructed a campground and a day-use area and built a number of park buildings. Pleased with the restoration and new facilities, the DAR presented...
  • Fort Greene Park - Brooklyn NY
    This large, lush Brooklyn park dates back 150 years. NYC Parks explains that "Another series of renovations made in the 1930s further enhanced the classical design of the park. Parks architect Gilmore D. Clarke regraded the grounds, added new trees and shrubs, replaced the winding paths with more formal walks, remodeled the playgrounds, and created new spaces for athletic activities." These and other activities were announced in several Department of Parks press releases at the time. In May 1936, a new playground was opened in the northwest corner of the park. In October of the same year, the children's garden in...
  • Fort Independence Restoration - Providence RI
    The WPA restored this fort at some point prior to 1938. From Rhode Island: A Guide to the Smallest State: "he Works Progress Administration has restored the old fort, graded the land, and converted it into a park." The site is now the Columbia Park Playground.
  • Fort Phil Kearny Replica - Banner WY
    "Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site includes a visitor's center with exhibits, videos, a bookstore, and self-guided tours of the fort grounds and outlying sites. The tour marks the archaeological remains of the fort's buildings. A cabin built by the Civilian Conservation Corps has been furnished to depict the period quarters of an officer's wife and a non-commissioned officer’s quarters. Visitors can also tour the nearby battlefields which are located within a five mile radius of the visitor center and include interpretive trails." A headline in Montana's Big Timber Pioneer newspaper suggests that the project was completed in 1938.
  • 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 Stevens Reconstruction - Washington DC
    From a HABS Survey Report describing CCC work on the Fort: “Ca. 1936, CCC enrollees reconstructed a portion of the Civil War-era fort-part of Washington's defensive ring-using ‘concrete logs and timbers to simulate original log construction.’  This reconstruction included part of the fort's moat, banquette, revetments, gun platforms, and an underground powder magazine, all set within a sloped lawn and accessed by gravel walks. The 2004 field survey found that the reconstructed fort and magazine remain intact and in reasonably good shape.  Access to the underground magazine has been blocked and the walkways at the site (save the perimeter sidewalks along the...
  • Fort Washington Park - Fort Washington MD
    Fort Washington was built to defend the river access to Washington D.C. in the early 19th century. In the 1930s, both the WPA and the CCC made general improvements to the Fort and surrounding park. The WPA made "general improvements to building and facilities at Fort Washington…including rehabilitating school, barracks, kitchens, latrines, gymnasium, and officers' club, including facilities, replacing sanitary sewers, altering and enlarging target facilities, improving roads by widening, straightening, resurfacing, and constructing curbs and gutters." (National Archives) A HABS Survey describes CCC activity at the Fort: “CCC work occurred during two periods at Fort Washington, first by Camp NP-6-VA (Fort Hunt),...
  • General Hancock Sculpture - New York NY
    "This monumental bronze portrait bust, dedicated in 1893, depicts Civil War General Winfield Scott Hancock (1824–1886), and was created by American sculptor James Wilson Alexander MacDonald (1824–1908)." (www.nycgovparks.org) In the 1930s, the bust was restored with federal funding under Karl Gruppe, "chief sculptor of the Monument Restoration Project of the New York City Parks Department, from 1934 to 1937." The program was initially supported by federal funding from the Public Works of Art Project (Lowrey, 2008), and later by the WPA.
  • Geronimo Surrender Monument - San Simon AZ
    "The Geronimo Surrender Monument commemorates the final surrender of the famous Chiricahua Apache Chief Geronimo and the last of his band to General Nelson A. Miles on September 4, 1886. That surrender marked the end of more than 20 years of warfare between the Chiricahua Apache and American settlers and the U.S. Army. Geronimo and his fighters, along with those Chiricahua already settled on the San Carlos Reservation, were forcibly removed to a prison camp in Florida. The monument was constructed by the City of Douglas on Highway 80, then the main east-west route, as a point of interest for...
  • Gettysburg National Military Park Improvements - Gettysburg PA
    Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) companies 385 and 1355—both African American units—restored, improved, and maintained Gettysburg National Military Park between 1933 and 1942. CCC projects in and around the battlefield included: road, trail, and fence construction; tree planting and maintenance; tree and stump removal; firefighting; snow shoveling; and utility pipe installation (presumably for water, sewage, or drainage). “The CCC also reconstructed the XII Corps earthworks on Culp’s Hill and provided manpower for the 75th anniversary commemoration of the battle in 1938” (James J. Campi, Jr., Hallowed Ground, 2013).   The CCC worked with the National Park Service (NPS) to plan projects with...
  • Giuseppe Verdi Monument Restoration - New York NY
    The Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to restore the Giuseppe Verdi Monument during the mid-1930s.
  • Goliad State Historical Park - Goliad TX
    This Texas state park was established to preserve a Spanish mission and commemorate historic events in Texas history. A marker at the site explains the CCC's involvement in the park's development: "Mississippi native and Goliad County Judge James Arthur White (1878-1953) possessed a fervent interest in Texas history, notably that of his adopted city of Goliad. He began in 1928 to organize support for a state park to protect Goliad's many significant historic sites. Judge White drafted a bill in 1931 to create the park and a state-funded bridge and highway (later U.S. 183). Despite the bleak financial prospects of the...
  • Gonzales Memorial Museum, Amphitheater and Reflecting Pool - Gonzales, TX
    The commission created by the Texas legislature in 1935 to oversee Texas' Centennial joined with the public works administration to build a memorial to Texas revolution events in Gonzales. The memorial includes a museum, amphitheater, and reflecting pool designed by acclaimed architects Phelps & Dewees. The art deco museum is built of shellstone, limestone and concrete. It features a rotunda and ornate detailing at the entryway, and in a band below the parapet. It was dedicated in 1937. A 2003 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form notes that, "The Commission allocated the sum of $30,000 and the Public Works Administration...
  • Grand Army Plaza Improvements - Brooklyn NY
    A Department of Parks press release from March 17, 1935 describes the extensive improvements made to Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza with New Deal support: "The Grand Army Plaza, constituting the main entrance to Prospect Park, Brooklyn, is to be completely rebuilt by the Department of Parks. The general design will remain unchanged but the promenade around the Bailey Memorial Fountain has been redesigned and the north entrances have been relocated away from the existing subway grating which is to be completely shielded by ground covering. The path around the oval is to be relocated somewhat nearer to the street to increase the...
  • Grand Army Plaza: General Sherman Sculpture Restoration - New York NY
    "This majestic, gilded-bronze equestrian group statue depicts one of the United States’ best-known generals, William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 – 1891). Dedicated in 1903, it was master sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s (1848 – 1907) last major work, and serves as the centerpiece of Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza." In the 1930s, the sculpture was restored with federal funding under Karl Gruppe, "chief sculptor of the Monument Restoration Project of the New York City Parks Department, from 1934 to 1937." The program was initially supported by federal funding from the Public Works of Art Project (Lowrey, 2008), and later by the WPA. The statue's gold leaf...
  • Grand Army Plaza: Pomona Statue Restoration - New York NY
    The Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to restore the Pomona statue (also known as the "Lady of the Plaza") in Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan, during the mid-1930s. The statue tops the Pulitzer Fountain in the plaza's southern half.
  • Grand Army Plaza: Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch Restoration - Brooklyn NY
    This dramatic arch in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza was created by architect John Hemingway Duncan in 1889-1892. The statuary on the arch was added over the next several years, by several different artists including William Rudolf O'Donovan (men), Thomas Eakins (horses) and Frederick MacMonnies (Army and Navy sculptures and the allegorical crowning sculpture). In the 1930s, the sculpture was restored with federal funding under Karl Gruppe, "chief sculptor of the Monument Restoration Project of the New York City Parks Department, from 1934 to 1937." The program was initially supported by federal funding from the Public Works of Art Project (Lowrey, 2008),...
  • Grant Square: Ulysses S. Grant Sculpture Restoration - Brooklyn NY
    "This large bronze equestrian statue by William Ordway Partridge (1861-1930) depicts Civil War General and 18th United States President Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885). Though Grant’s reputation was tarnished after serving as President amidst one of the most corrupt administrations in the nation’s history, he is revered for his decisive action in bringing about the end of the Civil War... The sculpture of Grant was commissioned by the Union Club of Brooklyn and unveiled on April 27, 1896, the 74th anniversary of his birth. Partridge depicts a determined Grant in his military outfit, including his signature wide-brimmed hat. The work is one...
  • Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Rockefeller Memorial - Gatlinburg TN
    Rockefeller Memorial, in Newfound Gap, honors a $5 million gift from the Rockefeller Foundation to complete land acquisitions for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), as were the roads, trails, and other structures in the park, the memorial was the site of the dedication of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on September 2, 1940 by President Roosevelt. National Park Service Director from 1933-1940, Arno B. Cammerer is credited with convincing John D. Rockefeller of the "urgency of protecting the Smokies from the lumber companies and the value of a...
  • Halyburton Memorial - Sandy Hook NJ
    The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Halyburton Memorial in Sandy Hook NJ. Located in the Gateway National Park.
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