Parks and Recreation Sites

The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) completed improvements at theBurroughs Playground in Washington DC, between 1934 and 1935. The work consisted of the following improvements: “Resurfaced two tennis courts.” The playground is on the school grounds of the John Burroughs Elementary School and is used as a school grounds and community playground.

"Butterworth Park is located at the corner of Grant St and Arthur St. The park occupies a square block near downtown. The park has includes a baseball stadium that includes permanent bleachers on one side of the field, a basketball court and a tennis court." "Bowditch, along with Butterworth and Winch Parks, were all built during the Great Depression of the 1930s as WPA projects." (Wikipedia)

Forty miles southeast of Bend, Oregon, the Cabin Lake Guard Station served as a district ranger station and headquarters for the Fort Rock Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest from 1921 through 1945. Members of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, located adjacent to the ranger station from 1934 to 1938, contributed to the area’s development for recreational use as well as improved its function for the Forest Service. The CCC camp members built seven buildings for the ranger station, including the existing guard station building.  Six of these structures (ranger residences, a warehouse, maintenance shop, and a gas station) remain...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built a field house (recreation hall) and athletic courts at the Cabrillo Playground in San Francisco, CA.   The exact date of this work is unknown to us. "Constructed field house for district recreation headquarters; basketball and 2 tennis courts, 1 volleyball etc. This improvement provided facilities for intensive supervised play." (Healy, p. 63). The "Hansel & Gretel" style field house, with restrooms, is still there, as are basketball and tennis courts which have been greatly modernized in recent years.

According to the West Virginia Department of Commerce: “Cacapon Resort State Park was the first CCC state park to be completed. Camp Morgan was established October 4, 1934 in what is now the main picnic area in the park. The land was devastated by clear-cutting of the timber and by poor agricultural practices of small subsistence farmers during the Great Depression. The men were responsible for the construction of 27 miles of roads and trails within the park, bath house, lake, dam and beach, picnic areas and shelters, stables, supply house, staff residences and rental cabins. The 12-room Old Inn was...

According to the Caddo Lake State Park History website, the cabins, pavilion, and trails were begun by Company 889 (June-November, 1933) and completed by Company 857 (October 1934-March 1937). Some of the original picnic benches remain, as do remnants of the original trails. The pavilion is no longer in use, though other buildings remain in use.

"The bowling greens at Cadwalader Park are kept in playing condition by the personnel." The WPA conducted major work at the park as well.

"The City of Roswell acquired the Haynes property in the 1930s and turned it into a municipal park. It was named Cahoon Park in 1936 after pioneer banker E.A. Cahoon. Now, the North Spring River is an intermittent waterway about 5 miles in length coursing through Roswells western suburbs with its banks largely lined with masonry wall or riprap. Numerous improvements to the park were undertaken as Works Progress Administration projects in the 1930s. One notable improvement along the river was construction of the masonry channel lining or riprap. Riprap lining was first added to the rivers channel through Cahoon...

"Besides constructing the amphitheater, workers from the Great Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) also helped drain the ravine which Cain Park is situated in, covering up and culverting the creek that ran through its center. Attractive landscaping, tennis courts, ball fields, and walking paths completed the transformation of the former "wild" land into a public park."

Workers from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed the amphitheater at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, Ohio during the 1930s. "CAIN PARK THEATER was the first municipally owned and operated outdoor theater in the U.S. ... A permanent 3,000-seat open-air auditorium and 80' stagehouse were built by Italian stonemasons working under the WPA and dedicated on 10 Aug. 1938."

Constructed by the CCC

Calf Pasture Beach is a Norwalk city park. Multiple New Deal agencies worked to improve the park during the 1930s. "Some additional buildings and sidewalks were constructed at Calf Pasture in 1935 with funding provided by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Many of the buildings and sidewalks at Calf Pasture were washed away during the hurricane of September 1938. They were then replaced by Works Progress Administration workers."

The California State Fair was established at this location in 1909. The WPA worked on the site during the 30s, most likely on the 75 acre expansion of the grounds in 1937. The fair, however, has since moved to a new location, and there does not appear to be much left of the original site.

During the Great Depression factory jobs were sparse, and unemployment was high because not many could afford consumer goods. Therefore, F.D.R. created programs, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA), to put people back to work through the development of public works projects. Physical labor was employed for the construction and landscaping of public roads and parks facilities, among others. One such location of WPA labor efforts in Cincinnati was the California Woods Nature Preserve. This 113-acre site required a large amount of manpower in order to get it to the beautiful and rich preserve it is today. This allowed hundreds to...

California Woods Nature Preserve was built in 1938 by Hubert M. Garriott and John W. Becker . The WPA hired local workers to built this modern 2 story pool house. Surrounded by woods and beautiful scenery, people got to enjoy coming here and soaking up some sun and playing in the community pool. This project allowed many people to provide for their families and be contributing members of society. Years after being built it was then used as a day camp. Some years later it was marked as a nature preserve.

The New York Times reported in 1941 that, as part of WPA efforts, Brooklyn would receive six new playgrounds, located at: "Third Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, Second Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, Fort Hamilton Parkway and Fifty-second Street, Albany and Foster Avenues, Park and Nostrand Avenues and Eastern Parkway Extension and Fulton Street." In November 1942, the Department of Parks announced that the WPA had completed the first part of the construction of a new playground at the last site mentioned above. The press release explained that Parks had received the land in 1940, with some restrictions for the nearby subways, and...

Newell Hamilton Foster "was the superintendent of Liberty Island, and in an unlikely connection, was also the superintendent of the Civilian Conservation Corps that built the Camden Hills State Park in the 1930s... Newell Hamilton Foster, was the superintendant of the Civilian Conservation Corps's Camden project from 1935 to 1947, when the camp was turned over to the State of Maine. The National Park Service (NPS) began working with the Maine Parks Commission in 1936 to develop a 1500-acre park (now 5,500 acres) in Camden... Foster and his Civilian Conservation Corps crew cleared brush; leveled terrain; built roads, parking areas, hiking trails...

An Oklahoma Historical Society document records that: "Unlike many other Oklahoma towns, Henryetta appears to have weathered the Depression reasonably well, in part because of the lingering importance of coal. As a result, Henryetta possesses fewer buildings constructed as Depression-era relief projects. One facility which did result from a 1938 WPA project is Cameron Field, located at South C Street at Jack Gibson Drive." The field is still extant and actively used.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a rail footbridge carrying lower Cameron Parkway across Spring Creek in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

In 1939, the Public Works Administration funded the construction of a swimming pool in Cameron, WV.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) made improvements to Camp Ben McCulloch in 1935. The WPA cleared the grounds and created a network of dirt-packed roads leading from the highway to the campgrounds. They modified the open sided gathering hall built in 1904 with a stone facade with a faux cornice to resemble entering a building. The current bathroom was built as a shelter by the WPA and converted to bathrooms in the 1970s. Camp Ben McCulloch was organized in the summer of 1896 as a reunion camp for Confederate veterans and named for Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch, who was killed at...

Buxton Lodge is the main building of Camp Buxton, a small campground owned by the Narragansett Council of the Boy Scouts of America. It is a long, low building, with Arts & Crafts-style detailing and was constructed by the WPA in 1935-1938.

The Works Progress Administration built cabins for a camp in Centennial, Albany County. The exact location and condition of this facility are unknown to the Living New Deal.

"One public service site that the public rarely sees because of its very private purpose is in the Catoctin Mountain Park recreational area, sixty miles north of Washington, D.C. This site was developed by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration and the CCC and was used first as a camp for crippled children, followed by a few other purposes, until FDR visited it in 1942 and claimed it, naming it his 'Shangri-La.' The cooler mountain climate provided the president and his family a chance to get some relief from the humidity and heat of the capital in those days before...

"Between 1935 and 1940, Massachusetts and the federal government, primarily using Works Project Administration funds, constructed 63 buildings (all but Buildings 102 and the old Williams Hospital have since been demolished) and two, 500-foot (150 m) wide turf runways at Otis Field. The project was the largest WPA project in state history, employing over 600 workmen. In 1938, Governor Charles F. Hurley dedicated Camp Edwards, named after the former commander of the 26th Infantry Division, Major General Clarence Edwards." (Wikipedia) WPA Bulletin: The Bourne WPA Notional Guard Camp Project is the largest undertaking of this kind in the country. It is twenty-three square...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) funded the construction of Camp Fairchance in Low Gap, Boone County. The buildings were constructed by FERA and later occupied by the WPA. The camp hired unemployed teachers through the WPA, and housed underprivileged children and children without legal guardians.

This WPA "Camp" is essentially a building sitting off Highway 16 just North of Rumsfeld. It is still used.

Originally known as Camp Berkeley, what is now Camp Herms contains a WPA swimming pool with dressing and shower rooms. The style was influenced by Mayan architecture. "The year 1938 marked the inauguration of a program of extensive improvements at Camp Herms... The City of El Cerrito sponsored the project and the City Engineer was to act as liaison between the W.P.A. and the council... The W. H. Gibson Foundation gave the council $2,500 for the construction of a pool and the Scout Executive accepted the responsibility of raising approximately $125,000 in cash and materials for the project. This included the swimming pool,...

Now used as a 4H summer camp, this site was originally built as Camp P-216 by the CCC. The CCC did experimental tree plantings as well as building a fire station and a pool "for firefighting purposes." The fire station is still there.

Construction on Camp Lassen's Chico main lodge was begun in September 1935 with funds from the State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA) and completed the following spring. The Chico Meadows site was cleared from forest lands originally leased from the Diamond Match Association by the Mount Lassen Area Council (now the Golden Empire Council) of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). The building contains a complete kitchen and dining hall, a stage for performances, administrative offices, and living quarters for the camp director and camp caretaker. While the space was originally built for the use of BSA troops, the camp was...

The facilities of Camp Lee Canyon were constructed in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration.

Camp Long is a 68-acre park in West Seattle. The park was constructed with WPA help starting n 1937. It was dedicated in 1941. WPA work in the park includes extensive rock work, the construction of a golf course, cabins and lodges and the first climbing wall in the world (see separate page on Schurman Rock).

The Little Rock Girl Scout Council was chartered in 1928. With the leadership of Sue Worthen Ogden, a national GS Inc. board member, "After months of looking at prospective sites in the Ouachita National Forest, Ogden contacted Forest Supervisor A. W. Hartman in April 1935 to express her interest in a site along Narrow Creek at a location called “the Narrows,” where a dam could be built to create a small lake. Sue Ogden then coordinated with three federal agencies—the Forest Service, CCC, and WPA—and recruited Perry County to serve as the “official” sponsor of the WPA project (because only...

Seeley Lake is one link in a chain of five lakes nestled between the lofty Swan and Mission mountain ranges in western Montana. Two hundred acres of ancient larch trees surround the area, which has drawn visitors since the early 1900s. In 1924, the USDA Forest Service granted a permit to the Western Montana Council of Boy Scouts to construct a summer camp. The facility was originally a tent camp but by the late 1930s there was need for a more permanent facility. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), New Deal programs vital to the...

The City of Columbus was awarded $8,821 for WPA project 41048 for improvements to Camp Pratt recreation center. The summer camp facility constructed a swimming pool, keeper's house, and remodeled camp houses, using 27 workers for 6 months. The city of Columbus supplied the materials. The 70-acre site was sold in 2018 with the agreement the city could continue to use it for summer camp.

Camp Preston Hunt is a Boy Scout Camp originally built on 200 acres of donated land in Texarkana, Arkansas. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) cleared the land and built cabins, a dining hall and a picnic shelter. The WPA employed over 1000 workers who were paid fifty cents a day. A plaque on the grounds identifies the camp as WPA Project 2355.

The CCC operated a camp in Savage in the 1930s. In the early 1940s it was used as a Military Intelligence Service Language School for training Japanese-American soldiers.

The former Camp Simms in the city's southeastern quadrant housed the DC National Guard rifle range prior to World War II.  In 1936, Work: A Journal of Progress reported extensive Works Progress Administration (WPA) improvements to Camp Simms: "Transformation of the National Guard Rifle Range at Camp Sims, from an ill-equipped, obsolete military adjunct into a model rifle range, is one of the many accomplishments of relief labor under the Works Progress Administration in the District of Columbia. One of the first tasks undertaken by WPA labor at Camp Sims was that of raising the level of practically the whole site. Coincident...

Now the site of the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Camp Upton (near Yaphank, New York), was originally "created in 1917 to house and train soldiers for the United States." Camp Upton and its surroundings was the site of New Deal activity throughout the Great Depression. Four CCC camps based at Camp Upton during the summer of 1934 were involved with, among other things, "the clearing of scrub oak, the planting of trees suited to the type of soil ... the building of fire lines and fire breaks and construction of emergency water holes for fire fighting." (2) The CCC...

Interest in winter sports, particularly skiing, grew in Oregon during the 1920s. Given the Willamette National Forest (WNF) management's commitment to recreation and the availability of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) labor, US Forest Service Staff worked with local outdoor groups such as Eugene's Obsidian Club to identify locations within the forest for ski areas as early as 1934. The White Branch Recreational Area was  one of the first such projects. A survey crew from CCC Camp Belknap located land for the White Branch project and CCC enrollees began work in the summer of 1934. They built a two-story lodge, ski and...