Bathhouses Sites

The Work Projects Administration (WPA) constructed this bath house in 1941-1942. Located at Lake Carlos, the facility includes a concession area, restrooms, and storage. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with other 4 structures, in 1987. A 1992 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form describes the formal characteristics of the Bath House: “The Bath House is a standard design utilized in many state parks with overall dimensions of 82'2" x 22'6". It consists of a split stone gable roofed central section containing a concession, restrooms, and storage areas flanked on either side by loggias which allow circulation through the building....

Quoting from a supplement issued 30 years prior, the Carlsbad Current-Argus stated in 1970: "Through the assistance of WPA the city has just completed a $50,000 improvement program at Municipal Beach park. This includes a beautiful bath house of natural rock design and complete landscaping of the park area with walks, trees and grass." The park, which was constructed during the late 1930s by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), lines a reservoir along the dammed Pecos River. Its riverwalk currently extends for miles along either side of the lake. The original "beach park" was located along the western side of the...

"This nomination seeks to recognize the entire property comprising Lake Leatherwood Park as a National Register Historic District.  Previously, Lake Leatherwood Dam and Recreational Facilities, consisting of the bathhouse and the picnic shelter, were listed individually in the National Register on August 12, 1992.  Since that time, additional AHPP survey efforts through the initiation of the Eureka Springs Parks Commission have revealed a large number of additional buildings, structures, and sites within the park that were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps as well as resources dating before and after the CCC period.  It is being nominated under Criteria A,...

"Repairing and painting of park board buildings, including band shells, bath houses, pavilions, bridges, residences, service buildings and play ground buildings in the following parks...Lake Park."

Jayne M. D'Onofrio: "In 1939, Wakefield Selectmen voted to ask the Special Town Meeting to build a bath house on Spaulding Street at Lake Quannapowitt, as well as other recreation projects... The building would not be made of brick as in the previous plans and would not be heated for winter use. The bath house could accommodate 100 boys and 100 girls and would be a modern building with asphalt shingles. On March 23, 1939, Special Town Meeting voted to build the bath house at a cost of $5,261 by a close vote. The Spaulding Street bath house was completed in...

"The bathhouse at the new Lake Springfield beach area started out as a Civil Works Administration program but couldn’t be finished as a work relief program because there was “an absence of skilled workers on the relief rolls,” according to the Illinois State Journal in 1933. It was completed by private construction. The beach opened in 1935 with help from the federal programs. Public parks, the wildlife sanctuary and other recreational areas also benefited."

NYSParks.com: "The park was donated to the State of New York in 1929 by Dr. McRa Livingston with the provision that the lake and park be named Lake Taghkanic. The lake had been previously known as Lake Charlott. In 1933 a Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camp was established at the park. C.C.C. projects in the park included construction of the East Bathhouse, the East Beach, the camping and cabin areas and the water tower."

Construction on the man-made lake itself began in 1932 and was completed with help from the CCC: "In April of 1933, reforestation camps (Civilian Conservation Corps) were located in Iowa.  Camp #773, Camp Roosevelt Civilian Reforestation Army, was stationed at Lake Wapello.  George W. Vaughn was the army officer in charge of the men.  The 187 recruits assigned to Camp Roosevelt arrived on May 30th, the additional 25 men who completed the camp's enrollment were mustered from local unemployed men.  These men were assigned to gully erosion work, because erosion might dump crumbling tons of shore into the newly formed body...

Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) labor constructed numerous facilities at Bridgewater's Legions Field. The facility was located at WPA Bulletin: WPA is completing construction of a Playground and Athletic Field, Bed- ford Street, Bridgewater. Work includes the building of a football field, a baseball diamond, two clay tennis courts, a wading pool and a locker building with showers and a road bordering one end of the property.

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of a municipal pool and bathhouse near the beach in Santa Barbara CA.  This was part of a larger program of improvements of the beach area parks – much of it done by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The bathhouse and pool are still in use as the Los Banos del Mar unit of the municipal pool system. Short & Stanley-Brown describe the project thus:  "The evident thought and care exercised in the design and planning of this municipal swimming pool has resulted in a satisfactory architectural composition. The pool is L-shaped, 50 by...

The CCC’s role in developing the park, as explained by the state of West Virginia: “During the Great Depression, beginning May 15, 1934, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 1524 occupied Camp Hardy, which was located near the present day entrance to Lost River State Park. By 1937, the CCC boys had built 15 standard cabins, an administration building, the superintendent’s residence, a swimming pool and bathhouse, a spring house covering the Lee Sulphur Springs (named after Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, Robert E. Lee’s father), and several bridges and other small stone structures throughout the park. The stonework of these beautiful buildings...

Madison Park, located at the eastern end of Madison Streeet, next to Lake Washington, was the site of several small Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects. The first of these projects involved the replacement of the park's clay tennis courts near the intersection of East Blaine Street and 42nd Avenue East. Installed in 1936, the new tennis courts were built with reinforced concrete, which the Park Department preferred due to lower maintenance costs and their potential use for other recreational activities, such as roller skating. Then, in the spring of 1937, WPA workers began remodeling the park's bathhouse, a wood-frame structure originally...

This large stone building was completed by the WPA in 1938 along with a swimming pool. The pool has since been replaced by a modern pool, but the large bathhouse and attached buildings have been repurposed as the Maplewood Public Library. When it was built, the pool was segregated with this being a white only pool.

The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation explains that: "McCarren Pool was the eighth of eleven giant pools built by the Works Progress Administration to open during the summer of 1936. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia attended the dedication on July 31, 1936. With an original capacity for 6800 swimmers, the pool served as the summertime social hub for Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The building’s vast scale and dramatic arches, designed by Aymar Embury II, typify the expansive and heroic spirit of New Deal architecture. The pool was closed in 1984 but in 2005 the site was resurrected as a performance space,...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Federal Emergency Relief Admn (FERA), and the Civil Works Admn (CWA) built multiple facilities in McClain Rogers Park in Clinton OK. Contributor note: "McClain Rogers Park was built with the combined efforts of the Federal Emergency Relief Admn (FERA), the Civil Works Admn (CWA), and the Works Progress Admn (WPA). It was constructed during the period 1934 to 1937. This is an area of about 12 acres which is bordered on the east by S. 10th, on the west by S. 13th, between Opal to the north and Jaycee on the south. There are two large entrance gates,...

"The pool at Silver Spring Park (now McGovern Park) was built by the CWA. The WPA built the new bathhouse."

Meshomasic State Forest, the first such entity in all of New England, was improved and developed by the efforts of two C.C.C. camps: Camp Jenkins (C.C.C. Company #181), in operation from June 14, 1933 to Jan. 1, 1936; and Camp Buck (C.C.C. Company #1197), in operation from Sept. 13, 1935 to Jul. 22, 1941. Among the work accomplished was "pouring a cement foundation for a sawmill," "building a lumber shed, a creosoting plant, a brick charcoal kiln ...," "miles of trails," and construction of "Milford Road." Other accomplishments are linked to from this page.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) constructed bath houses on Great Hill Road at Meshomasic State Forest. The location and status of these facilities is presently unknown to Living New Deal.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) developed Tucumcari Metropolitan Park, a.k.a. Five Mile Park, in Tucumcari, New Mexico. "At one time Tucumcari Metropolitan Park had the largest outdoor pool in the entire state of New Mexico, a playground with lots of equipment, a fully landscaped drive through park with bridges, creeks, a pistol and rifle range, a skeet and trap shooting range, and off-road course, horseback riding and was home to the then annual Founder’s Day Picnics." NRHP nomination form: "Referred to as Metropolitan Park, the park became known as Five Mile Park in the 1950s. The completed project marked a five year process...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) developed the remarkable (former) bathhouse and pool facility at Tucumcari Metropolitan Park, a.k.a. Five Mile Park, in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The pool was advertised as the largest in the Southwest. NRHP nomination form: The bathhouse is a one-story building with a concrete foundation, brown stucco over adobe walls, and a flat asphalt roof. The L-plan building incorporates many of the Spanish-Pueblo Revival Style's defining details including a modest irregular massing of horizontal planes, slightly battered walls, exposed beams, or vigas, drainage ducts, or canales, a long portal supported by heavy wood posts with corbels, and lintels above paired...

This 6.1-acre historic district includes three rustic buildings, a dam and the surrounding recreational grounds. It was a joint project of the U.S. Forest Service, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. The work consisted of the construction of several additional features such as campgrounds and roads which are not part of the historic district. The buildings and dam are in excellent condition and appear almost exactly as they did when originally built. The district sits within a significant glacial tunnel channel and esker system that were created during the pleistocene. A segment of the Ice Age National...

The Kaiser Pass Road (opened in 1927) resulted in increased travel to Mono Hot Springs on the west side of the Sierra Nevada near Huntington Lake – one of the best-known hot springs in California. Therefore, the Forest Service decided to utilize the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to upgrade the facilities there. In 1934, the CCC men constructed a bathhouse and several auxiliary buildings over the concrete-walled springs on the south side of the San Joaquin River.  On the north side of the river, the CCC built a campground. The buildings were torn down in 1963 and a new bathhouse built on...

The federal Works Progress Administration undertook a $93,900 project starting in 1935 to modernize and otherwise improve several public (now-former) bath facilities in Brooklyn, NY. The public baths on 14 Montrose Ave. were constructed in 1903; the building has since been demolished. The facilities identified as part of the WPA project were: 209 Wilson Ave. Municipal Baths, Coney Island Duffield Street Hicks Street Pitkin Ave. Huron St. Montrose Ave.

The Moore Recreation Center, including a swimming pool, bath house, and possibly a playground, were constructed in 1939-40 as a New Deal project: the Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a $124,700 grant for project, whose total cost was $272,577. "The grand opening of the swimming pool was held on August 9, 1940." A plaque marks the bathhouse as a PWA project. PWA Docket No. PA 2208-F

"The 87 park acres and surrounding 668 acres of state forest were purchased by the state in 1934. The swimming area, bathhouse, campground, and administration building were built at that time and the park opened to the public in 1936. The original administration building, still in use, is an excellent example of classic Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) design and construction. "

The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) "built a caretaker's cabin, bath houses and facilities for swimmers at Morey Pond" at Nipmuck State Forest. These days, Interstate 84 runs right through the middle of Morey Pond, and these facilities no longer exist.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a pool in Mountwell Park in Haddonfield, New Jersey ca. 1936. The pool has since been abandoned. Philly.com: "started out as a swimming hole created by the 1913 construction of a cobblestone dam (the cobblestones were taken from Kings Highway) at a stream near the present intersection of Reillywood Avenue and Centre Street. The bathhouse atop an adjacent hill and a children's playground followed. In 1937, as a public-works project after the Depression, a cement pool replaced the original sand-bottom hole. That year, the Camden County Park System described the pool and its park as...

This historic stone bathhouse was built, along with a municipal swimming pool, for the community of Viroqua, Wisconsin. It was a New Deal project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and its relief workers. The pool was removed in 2014-15, but the building remains and has been marked as a local historic site. The building is owned by the city, which is threatening to sell it – a decision that is opposed by many in the community (2022).  The Viroqua Historic Preservation Commission with the approval of the City of Viroqua has formed a WPA Building Task Force to raise money to renovate...

Bathhouse number 6 was the last bathhouse built in St. Louis during the time when the need for bathing by those with no indoor plumbing was a critical problem. They were built in those areas of the city with the highest concentrations of laborers. Less than 1 in 1,000 of the 25% poorest had indoor plumbing. This bathhouse was built by the PWA in 1936-1937 for $42,763. This bathhouse has 2 doors, men's to the right, women's to the left.

The municipal pool and bath house in El Reno was a FERA project completed in 1935. From the 1999 National Register of Historic Places application: The El Reno Municipal Pool Bath House, constructed in 1935 in Legion Park, the city's largest recreation area, represents an historical pattern within the context of Recreation/Entertainment for El Reno, Oklahoma. Legion Park was the second of six city park projects developed in the years 1901-1949. Legion Park, formerly Peach's Park, had initially been privately developed c. 1903 but was allowed to decline even after the city acquired the property in 1920. The area remained relatively...

"On September 2, 1935, the Town of Hugo submitted a Works Progress Administration project proposal for the construction of a 'concrete swimming pool together with bathhouse, landscaping and grading and other necessary work to complete a City Park.' Actual construction began a year later. Work halted twice, once so the WPA crew could finish the Hugo gymnasium/auditorium project and again in July 1937 for the crew to mix and spread poison bait in the regional battle against grasshoppers. The still unfinished facility opened to the public on Saturday, June 18, 1938. The bathhouse is a good example of WPA Art...

The Works Progress Administration built the municipal swimming pool in Navasota, Texas between 1935 and 1936. The complex includes the main swimming pool, a wading pool and a bath house. The bath house was originally built as a single story structure. A second story was added in the 1960s.

This Tennessee state park was developed by several New Deal  "on land bought from residents who could no longer farm the land due to erosion." (wikipedia.org) "Three New Deal agencies, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Resettlement Administration, assumed responsibility for the park's initial planning and development. Like other early state parks, the Resettlement Administration relocated property owners from unproductive and overused farm land; the CCC and WPA began land replenishment and park construction. The CCC concentrated its efforts on reforestation work and instigated land stabilization programs that included the introduction of the Japanese vine...

The Blue Room is one of the original dining areas in the San Francisco Aquatic Park bathhouse,  constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The building is now the visitors center for the National Maritime Historical Park. The building architects were William Mooser Jr and William Mooser III. The painting and murals were paid for by the Federal Art Project (FAP) and done under the supervision of Hilaire Hiler, lead artist for the entire building's artworks. Original drawings refer to this circular room on the eastern side of the second level as “restaurant.” There is no known record as to how it...

Nazareth Boro Park (also spelled Nazareth Borough Park) was begun in 1935 as a WPA project. Stone walls, a foot bridge, and an automobile bridge were among the features constructed. By 1937, a bathhouse and an 18,500 square foot swimming pool had been constructed. The pool was replaced in 2015 due to structural damage. The bridges and stone walls and entrance to the park remain. The automobile bridge has WPA 1939 chiseled into the rock.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.)'s Camp Graves operated between May 27, 1933 and April 22, 1936 at Nipmuck State Forest in Union, Connecticut. Among the C.C.C. accomplishments were "8 miles of truck trails" and "fire suppression on the Connecticut—Massachusetts border." Additional projects are linked to from this page.

"Oak Lodge is a historic recreational complex in Chatfield Hollow State Park in Killingworth, Connecticut. that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. The main building is a large Rustic-style structure built in 1937 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The lodge was built on the west side of Schreeder Pond, an artificial pond also built by the CCC. It was part of the development of recreational activities within Cockaponset State Forest. The CCC benefited from the construction excellence of its masons, wrought-iron smiths, and woodworkers, and some of their best work is shown in Oak Lodge....

Orchard Beach is an artificial beach 6,000 feet long on Pelham Bay in Pelham Bay Park on the east side of The Bronx, built by WPA workers under the direction of the New York City Parks Department. It required a major reconfiguration of the shoreline and sand imported from the Atlantic coast.  It included many auxillary improvements, most notably a large bathhouse behind the beach.  Researcher Frank da Cruz sums up New Deal involvement in developing the area based on multiple Parks Department press releases from the 1930s: "Orchard Beach  created by the federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) from a plan developed in...

Camp Clearfork Historic District: "The ten buildings, one site and one structure that compose the contributing resources to the Camp Clearfork Historic District were constructed by members of the 741st Company of the Arkansas CCC District stationed at the Crystal Springs Camp that was located close nearby. This complex, constructed circa 1935, served as a public recreational area within Ouachita National Forest (ONF) as part of the CCC's emphasis upon recreational construction that began in earnest that same year. This complex, with its dam and lake, staff and caretaker’s buildings, cabins and bathhouses functioned purely as a recreational facility, as it...

Constructed by the 742nd Company of the Arkansas Civilian Conservation Corps District stationed at Mena Camp, this was "…part of a small public recreational complex within the Ouachita National Forest…" (Arkansas Historic Preservation Program). The site includes two dams, a bathhouse, and a picnic shelter, which remain in use.