Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels Sites

The Works Progress Administration completed improvement work for Lookout Mountain Road near Lookout Mountain, CO.

The Lord Bridge is a 92 foot steel and concrete stringer bridge that carries the Loggin Rd. over Marsh Stream. It was one of 26 bridges badly damaged or destroyed by a 500 year flood in March 1936. A state highway commission report notes that the reconstruction of these bridges were U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. The design is standard for Maine State bridges of the era and was resurfaced recently in 2019. The concrete posts show signs of wear.

This 1938 photo from the National Archives and Records Administration shows the bridge on Lorings Crossing Rd. under construction in 1938.

The New Deal Federal Public Works program contributed $20,000 to the construction of this structure over the LA Aqueduct for the San Fernando Road near the Cascades.

"The New Deal continued to build facilities that would eventually contribute to Las Vegas's emergence as a resort city. ... Access to Las Vegas was also improved when New Deal funding finished the paving and widening of the Los Angeles Highway - an event which forever abolished southern Nevada's remoteness." Interstate 15 roughly follows the old Los Angeles Highway right-of-way.

The WPA completed street improvements in Los Banos and other Merced county locations.

The Works Progress Administration completed improvements on Louis-Mafolie Road in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. The work included asphalting, eliminating dangerous curves, widening road, installing culverts.

This farm-to-market road in Mendocino County, constructed with federal assistance during the Great Depression, runs along Orrs Creek, providing a route into the town of Ukiah from surrounding rural areas. The route begins at State Street in downtown Ukiah and continues west and north to connect to Orr Springs Road.

This concrete bridge bears the faint stamp "NYA 1939". It crosses the San Antonio River at E. Woodlawn and River Avenue in Brackenridge Park. It was closed to traffic many years ago, but still serves as a crossing for pedestrians and fishermen.

Delaware utilized substantial federal resources in developing and improving its road network during the Great Depression. Among the dozens of projects undertaken by the federal Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) during 1934 was road construction "Lowes X Roads to Newfound." The exact location of these projects is unknown to Living New Deal, though Lowes Crossing Road is highlighted on the map below. An average of 1,410 were put to work each week during 1934 as a result of the CWA's road, sidewalk, bridge, and other related infrastructure efforts in Delaware.  

A marker erected in 1998 describes the CCC's role in developing Loy Park and Loy Lake: "Grayson County officials became aware of a growing need for a public recreation facility for the area's approximately 65,500 residents in 1930. Three years later the federal government agreed to create a small lake on land provided by the county. The county commissioners court purchased a site 2.5 miles southwest of Denison in October 1933 and secured the services of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a federal public works program, to construct the dam and build a recreational park. In early November, 200 men from...

Ludlow Road was extended by the W.P.A. Project information: "Ludlow Rd. to Slobbery Pond Road", also "Ludlow Rd. to Pleasant St." Official Project Number: 65‐1‐14‐3047 Total project cost: $48,437.00 Sponsor: War Department The road was built in conjunction with the development of the Westover military reservation. "Slobbery Pond" was the name of a pond south of Slipe Pond, which was located northwest of Westover.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted street repair work on Lurting Avenue in the vicinity of Rhinelander Ave. and Morris Park Ave., ca. 1936.

The bridge was built by the Works Progress Administration. It was demolished at an unknown date and replaced with a pedestrian bridge.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of Luzon Avenue NW. from Sixteenth Street to Whittier Street. The WPA graded this road, and also prepared it for paving with a foundation of salvaged material. “In addition to fine grading and placing of salvaged material, this project required a small amount of heavy grading.”  

Lynch Boulevard in Oil City, Pennsylvania was constructed by the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1940. Lake Shore Visitor: "P. A. Lynch, pastor of St Joseph's church, has had a corps of men working in the two cemeteries, with the result that the plots are in the best condition in several years. A new road to Calvary cemetery was completed in time for the Memorial day traffic. The stone base was built last fall and the black top was completed May 24. The road gives a fine approach to the cemetery with little grade and a much shorter than the old route...

The bridge carrying Lynn Road across Falls River in Westbrook, Connecticut was constructed by the W.P.A. in 1939.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) developed a farm-to-market road in Hamilton County: South M Road, south and west of Aurora. "The road work now under way Is a grading and graveling job extending twelve miles south from the new overpass on highway No 34 four miles west of Aurora to the county line."

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved a segment of M Street SE, from Fairlawn Avenue to Anacostia Road. The WPA graded this road, and also prepared it for pavement by putting in a foundation of recycled road material (e.g., concrete, rock, macadam).

The National Industrial Recovery Administration awarded the “United States Public Works project no. NRH-13-B, Maalaea Airport Spur, for the sum of $25,574.76.” The airport was closed permanently in 1939.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted extensive farm-to-market road construction and improvement work in Watauga County, North Carolina. A newspaper photo shows one such WPA road project "from the potato mountain section to Mabel."

In 1935-36, Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief crews built a new roadway in the district's northwestern quadrant, west of Glover Park. Based on the description from the National Archives, this was most like an extension and expansion of  Conduit Road, now MacArthur Boulevard: "West of Glover Park, on the heights overlooking the Potomac, WPA workers completed a task which involved real pioneering, even though it was carried on within a few miles of the Capitol of the Nation. A labor battalion there cut through a literal wilderness on the very outskirts of the Capitol. Several weeks afterwards a broad city thoroughfare...

CCC Camp SP-1, 1191 was established in Macedonia Brook State Park in 1935. The CCC "did much site development here in the 1930s, including construction of a pavilion and a carriage road with massive retaining walls constructed without mortar." (www.townofkentct.org) The road, built from 1935-37, is now used for hiking and skiing. "What makes the road so outstanding is that its solid workmanship was performed by young men who had little skill in road construction other than the ability to perform hard labor day in and day out. But 75 years after its completion, the craftsmanship has mostly survived the ravages...

The WPA allocated $157,756 toward reconstruction of the roadway crossing the Macomb's Dam Bridge, which connects the Bronx to Manhattan in New York City. WPA Official Project No. 65-97-36.

The Madera Approach Road was built to provide access to the Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River above Fresno CA, built by the Bureau of Reclamation and completed in 1940. It was built with a combination of state, local and federal funds, using Works Progress Administration (WPA) labor and completed in 1940.  The work covered about 15 miles of roadway, to wit: "The first fifteen miles of the twenty mile Madera approach road to the Friant Dam is the portion of State Highway Route 126 between Madera and the Fresno-Yosemite Highway . The Division of Highways, in cooperation with the...

In addition to other projects in Madera County, the WPA completed a county detention center as well as a bridge on Minturn-Planada Rd. over the Chowchilla River.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) assisted in the paving of Madison Avenue from 59th St. to 82nd St.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted road and building improvement work at the old Madison Barracks in Sackets Harbor, New York.

The Works Progress Administration completed improvements for Magazine Branch Road in Charleston. The work consisted of setting the stone basing of the road. The exact location and condition of this road are unknown to the Living New Deal. The road was likely what is now called Garrison Avenue, which appears to be one of the two Magazine streets listed on the Sheet 240 of the 1933 Sanborn Maps.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) paved 34 streets in Hartford, Connecticut, including Mahl Avenue from Main Street to Garden Street, as part of a $2.5 million, two-year paving project begun in 1937. The federal government contributed $1 million.

The Works Progress Administration completed improvements on Mahogany Avenue, near the hospital in Charlotte Amalie. The work included a new gutter and culvert.

The Works Progress Administration completed the surfacing of Mahogany Road on St. Thomas.

Two federal New Deal agencies: the Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) and the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), contributed to the construction of the Main Avenue Bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. "In the early 1930s under the auspices of the WPA, Cleveland adopted a regional traffic plan including the construction of a six mile lakefront highway connecting Gordon Park on the east side with West Boulevard at Edgewater Park on the west side. The six-mile route was intended to relieve city streets of cross-town and through traffic. The Main Avenue Bridge, funded by the WPA, was a ten-span, continuous cantilever truss, fixed high-level bridge...

The modest bridge carrying Main Street across Freeman Brook in Warren, Vermont was constructed with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds. The bridge is located north of Flat Iron Rd. and south of Warren Store and The Pitcher Inn. A plaque states "Vermont Bridge / PWA No 1020 F", referring to the PWA project number. The year 1936 is carved into the cement around the plaque.

The Works Progress Administration carried out improvement work on Main Street in Columbia.  

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) resurfaced Main Street in Gadsden in 1937.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved Main Street in Oceanport, New Jersey, a $72,018 project. WPA Official Project Number: 265‐1‐22‐65

Along Main Street, between 1st and Poplar exist a small number of concrete curb stops located at asphalted, angled parking stalls that flow directly from the roadway heading north. These curb stops were part of a WPA street improvement project in 1940. The southbound lane along Main Street also contained angled parking stalls but have recently been converted to vertical parking lanes and the original concrete curb stops removed.

"The original Smithtown Railroad Station was built in 1872, when the LIRR was extended to Smithtown. A new railroad station was built in 1936 while a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project was underway to eliminate the grade-level crossing on Smithtown's Main Street." (Harris et al.)

The federal Bureau of Public Roads gave a grant of $8,200 for the State Highway Department to grade and surface a half-mile portion of Main Street from Broaddus Creek to the North West Pacific Railroad tracks.  Main Street is part of the old Redwood Highway, which is was bypassed by the modern Highway 101 in the 1960s.