Parks and Recreation Sites

"Great Blue Hill has a observation tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps as part of the New Deal in the 1930's (The Eliot Tower). The views of the city and Greater Boston Area on a clear day are amazing and make this a very popular spot for families."   (https://takeadaytrip.com)

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed a recreation building at Elizabeth Park in Nashville, Tennessee. The building now serves as a senior citizen center.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked to clean, beautify and generally improve the condition of the Elizabeth River in Elizabeth, New Jersey during the Great Depression.

At Elk Neck State Park, visitors can enjoy swimming in the Chesapeake Bay, boating on the Elk River, fishing, crabbing, camping, hiking, and biking. Hunting is also allowed, in-season. Of course, this recreational resource did not always exist. It was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (Camps S 5, Company 1363) beginning in 1937. The CCC boys built trails, roads, parking areas, water fountains, and fireplaces. The work of the CCC continues to serve people who visit and enjoy Elk Neck State Park today.

Erie County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Forestry states that "The majority of the original park was acquired through the purchasing of private land and County tax foreclosures (1936 & 1937).... WPA crews built structural construction. The WPA structures included the Boathouse & concession stand (1939), shelters, recreation facilities, and the boat dock. Ellicott Island, A.K.A Island at "three mile bend" was constructed to make the creek more navigable and divert canal traffic. Charles Ellicott, a Landscape Architect, heavily influenced the island in the design process. The spur in development in the late 30's through the 40's created the peak popularity...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed the Ellis Kinney Swimming Pool in Pratt, Kansas. However, the original pool was demolished in September of 2022. It has been replaced by a new pool funded by a private donor.

In 1939-40, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) made substantial improvements to Ellis Lake Park, which was originally designed by landscape architect John McLaren in 1924 on an old slough of the Yuba River.  It is not clear how much of the park had been developed before the WPA came in to assist the city of Marysville.  The WPA workers dredged the lake, put cobblestone rip-rap on the banks, built rock lampposts for night illumination, and installed an ornamental fountain. They also added two tennis courts, a judging stand, a 20-ft. concrete and stone bridge to an island in the lake, and a...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked to develop Vermont's Elmore State Park during the 1930s. To this day, a "CCC-built beach house with a community room ... can be rented for group functions."

Home football stadium for Morningside College, East High School, North High School and West High School. Formerly known as Roberts Stadium.

As part of a grant to the Pueblo before it became the City of Los Angeles, Elysian Park is the oldest and second largest park in Los Angeles at 600 acres. A section of the park Montecillo De Leo Politi is a limited use area available by reservation. In 1936, the WPA constructed two tennis courts and two comfort stations there. Under project number 9907, it was sponsored by the City of Los Angeles, the cost was $211,942, and provided 358 men on average per month with employment for 9 months.

Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas was dramatically transformed and improved by construction projects enabled by the federal Public Works Administration (PWA) during the Great Depression. The park "was donated to the City of Houston in 1916. For more than twenty years, Emancipation Park was the only public park in Houston open to African-Americans. In 1938-39, the Public Works Administration constructed on the park site a recreation center, swimming pool, and bathhouse, designed by prominent Houston architect William Ward Watkin, on the site. The buildings are important examples of PWA construction in Houston and have been used since their construction for after-school...

Emery Park in South Wales, New York was one of a number of parks in Erie County improved ca. 1936 by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). The old incinerators are among the historic stone structures that remain from the WPA improvement project (Erie County).

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was present in Death Valley National Monument  from 1933 to 1942.  CCC 'boys' built erected dozens of buildings in the monument, including administrative, residential, maintenance and visitor facilities.  One important building is the Emigrant Junction ranger station, built in 1942 as one of the CCC's last projects in the monument.   The Emigrant Junction station, at the junction of the Towne Pass and Emigrant Pass roads, was the principal western entry point to Death Valley for decades.  The stone building seen here replaced a flimsier structure built in 1935.  It was  heavily modified in 1963, then restored...

Located between Pendleton and La Grande, Oregon, near the summit of the Blue Mountains along Interstate -84, Emigrant Springs State Heritage Area offers an interpretation of the significance of this location on the Oregon Trail as it provides camping, picnicking, and hiking opportunities. While land acquisition for the park area began in 1925 and continued for nearly fifty years, significant improvement of the park for day use activities took place in the mid-1930s. A Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was located at the site and assigned to the State Park Commission. From 1935 to 1937, CCC enrollees improved the area...

In the early 1930s, the City of Austin acquired about 1008 acres of ash and juniper woodland west of the city with a mile of lake front on Lake Austin. In December 1939, Civilian Conservation Corps Company 1805 arrived at the site to develop the tract of land into a municipal park. The company's primary work included seeding and sodding grass, planting trees, and protecting the bank of the lake from erosion. They also cleared brush, built roads and developed permanent improvements to the site such as a bathhouse and concession stand. These wooden structures later burned and were replaced...

"The revival of interest in listening to music out of doors has not been overlooked by the city of Phoenix in its park improvement program, and this band shell in the Dorris-Norton Park provides a place where the bands and orchestras of the city can play. The shell is constructed entirely of wood covered with stucco and has been designed to reflect and amplify the sound over a large area of the park. It was completed in June 1937 at a construction cost of $5,400 and a project cost of $6,731 which did not include electrical connections for lighting or...

"In order to provide its citizens and its large transient population with better park facilities, the city of Phoenix undertook the rehabilitation and beautification of existing parks and the acquisition of lands for the creation of new mountain and city parks. The type of buildings erected in these parks was similar in all cases and their character and design blend with the brilliant sunshine and the native foliage. The illustration on this page is a view of the club house in the Dorris-Norton Park. It is one and part two stories in height and contains a large public dining room,...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built park facilities at the Enderis Playing Field in Milwaukee. One among many parks built and improved by the WPA in Milwaukee, the Enderis Playing field is still in use today. The land, which the city purchased in 1931, was initially part of the Gale Crest Park subdivision, a sparsely populated area annexed by the city of Milwaukee in 1927. The park is named after Dorothy Enderis, who led the Recreation Division of the Milwaukee Public Schools. Together with Gilbert Clegg, she devised the 1937 Milwaukee park improvements plan. The list of projects to be completed...

The Works Progress Administration built tennis courts, an ice rink, and a shelter house for the School in Enosburg.  

Contributor note: "Eastern Oklahoma State College was established in 1908, and has evolved over the years to becoming an accredited Junior College. It is located at 1301 W. Main Street west of the town of Wilburton. On the west side of the campus, a football gridiron and red cinder track was constructed by the WPA. Today, the track has been removed and the field is used for soccer. The grandstands are constructed of uncoursed native sandstone, and poured concrete seating. The stands measure 278 ft. by 14 ft. The stands have three tiers except in the center section which has six...

The Epping-Springbrook Dam was the "largest earthfill dam in the State. Constructed as an FERA and WPA project, it was completed in 1936. This bulwark on STONY CREEK has created a lake covering 180 acres, which, including a strip of land around the water, will be made into a State park devoted entirely to recreation." The exact location and current status of the project is unknown to Living New Deal, though we believe the dam to be no longer extant.

The WPA photo shown here shows the new Firemen's Building constructed for the Erie County Fairgrounds. The building remains in place today and "houses antique fire engines and other artifacts" (www.ecfair.org)

The CCC did extensive work to build Erving State Forest. From Wikipedia: “The property is largely wooded and hilly with an extensive network of park roads and hiking trails, the majority of which were created by the Civilian Conservation Corps.”    

The New Deal constructed this band shell in an Escondido city park.

Estabrook park was one of many parks in Milwaukee County to receive extensive improvements from the CCC or the WPA in the 1930s. Work by the CCC at Estabrook Park included the removal of "about 100,000 cubic yards of rock from the bed of the Milwaukee River at Estabrook Park. The rock was crushed and used for roads and dam construction." The CCC also "onstructed a flood control dam at Estabrook Park, including a rock spillway and flood control gates, separated by a small island."

The CCC built two miles of fire trails around the Estate Whim homestead community, located on St. Croix, near Frederiksted.

Photo caption, UVM: "This is a view of the building built under WPA Project No. 65-12-344 at Ethan Allen Park to be used as a combination tool house and toilet for ladies and gentlemen. Modern plumbing has been installed in the toilets with a large cesspool for sewage disposal which can later be connected with the proposed sewer to be built on Bradley Road . This building is erected near the picnic grounds in the Pine Grove." The exact location and status of this facility is presently unknown to Living New Deal.

The Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) constructed a masonry entrance at the south end of Ethan Allen Park. The W.P.A. also widened the entrance to 26 feet (W.P.A. Project No. 65-12-344).

The Works Progress Administration constructed a stone masonry lookout house at the pinnacle of Ethan Allen Park in 1938.

Photo caption, UVM: "This view shows Ethan Allen Park drive as seen from the pinnacle. This drive is being constructed with 8" telford stone sub base, 4 inches of stabilized sand and stone base and 1 1/4 inch of armor coat wearing surface covered with a thin layer of washed sand. There is a little over one mile of this type of pavement sixteen feet in width which has been constructed under the WPA project."

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built. the Eureka Fishing Lake in 1938.

At Evans Park the WPA and the City of Reno built a circular cement wading pool fifty feet in diameter. A sprinkling system was installed and gravel walks laid out. Today the park which sits just to the south of the University of Nevada, Reno is a grassy lawn with horseshoe pits. Students are found there enjoying the space.

Today's NYC Parks website explains: "The City of New York acquired the property for this park in January 1941. At that time, the park was divided by 60th Street, which cut through the property. The City then assigned Evergreen Park to the Board of Education and Parks in the spring of 1942. In order to expand the parkland and unify the two sections, the City closed 60th Street and gave the area to Parks. Part of the park is jointly operated with the adjacent P.S. 68. The playground opened officially on January 11, 1943." A 1943 press release announcing the park's...

The WPA worked on Excelsior Playground in San Francisco.

This cast stone sculpture by Donal Hord was funded by the PWAP in 1934. The sculpture depicts a man crouching behind a wheel filled with gears and is variously known as "Man and the Wheel" or "Wheel of Industry" or "Man and the Machine." The sculpture's dimensions are 6'8" height x 5'6" width x 4' deep, and the base is 4'h x 5'w x 4'd. The piece seems to have originally been made for the museum in Exposition Park. It is currently in storage: "The sculpture was constructed as part of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). It may have been...

"Locally, the 1,000-acre F. Gilbert Hills State Forest in Foxboro, once surplus farmland, now welcomes about 40,000 visitors a year long after the CCC installed roads, improved trails and constructed buildings on the site."

F. D. Roosevelt State Park is the largest state park in Georgia: "Many facilities within the park were built by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, including stone cabins overlooking the mountain, a Liberty Bell-shaped swimming pool, and the arched bridge at Hwys. 190 and 354. A small lake is open to fishing and canoeing, and picnic shelters are available for group gatherings."   (www.pinemountain.org)

According to the NYC Parks Department: "In 1935, the City of New York acquired this property and it underwent renovations performed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (1882-1945) Works Progress Administration (WPA). In addition to removing the deteriorating music halls, carousels, and shooting galleries, the WPA also laid down the present two and a half-mile long boardwalk. In 1939, it was dedicated to the former governor and president." The WPA Guide to New York City reported that this was "a two-million-dollar board-walk, constructed by the WPA in 1938." The boardwalk runs along the eastern border of the neighborhood of Dongan Hills on...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked to develop Fair Haven Beach State Park during the 1930s.

The river rock wall around community clubhouse was done by the WPA. Unsure whether the building itself is also a WPA project.