Parks and Recreation Sites

Originally the Priest River Experimental Station, the Priest River Experimental Forest now refers to both a stretch of forest near Priest River Idaho and the research buildings and other facilities located there. It has been a site for forestry research since 1911. During the 1930s, the CCC replaced nearly all the station's original buildings, most of which are still standing. The CCC-constructed facilities include underground telephone and power systems, sewage system, gas house, lodge, residence #3, laboratory/office building, and residence #4.

Prince William Forest Park was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), with help from skilled workers of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), from 1935 to 1942.  It was then known as Chopawamsic Recreation Demonstration Area (the name was changed in 1948).  RDAs were meant for getting inner city children out into the country to enjoy the benefits of nature and outdoor recreation. The New Deal programs built permanent structures, including the park headquarters and five cabin camps, extensive roads and trails, and five recreational lakes.  Almost all these improvements are still in use today.  The National Park Service, which operates...

This large and unusual WPA-built swimming pool was begun in September, 1936 and was scheduled to be complete within 6 months.  It has an unusual fan-shape for the main large pool and an adjacent shallow pool.  The bathhouse/dressing rooms are within the rock faced building to the east of the pool.  At this time, a chain link fence surrounds the pool, though it is doubtful that it did originally.  It has an extensive filter system on side of the hill above the pool.  The filter has an active sand filter with additional layers of rock and sand above it to...

Private First Class Thomas Norton Memorial Playground, located on Nostrand Avenue south of Kings Highway, was acquired by the Parks Department in 1940 and completed by the WPA in 1941. The press release announcing the playground's opening described the WPA's work: "The half-acre area has been intensively developed in units designed for various age groups. The kindergarten section contains a sand pit, slides, swings and see-saws together with seating accommodations for mothers and guardians of children. Adjoining this is a space devoted to older children equipped with swings, slides and exercise unit. The central area contains a shower basin and a...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked to develop Promised Land State Park during the 1930s. Among other work the CCC constructed cabins and blazed trails. "Nestled within evergreens and adjacent to Lower Lake, the Bear Wallow Cabin Colony has 12 rustic rental cabins that were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s."

"...the Point was a part of the famous Daniel Burnham Plan for Chicago of 1909, was developed in the 1920s and landscaped in 1937 as a WPA project by the late Alfred Caldwell... One of its major aspects is a continuous edge of stratified limestone along the shore of Lake Michigan. This feature is typical of the Prairie Style of landscape architecture..." (Hyde Park Herald, 2001) "In the mid-1930s, an infusion of labor and money from the new Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) led Donahue to approve the development of the Promontory. The Point's distinctive fieldhouse was designed by park district architect...

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) funded improvements at Prospect Hill Park in Waltham MA. The Boy Scout Lean-Tos were built in 1935 with FERA funds. The original park was founded in 1893.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) funded improvements at Prospect Hill Park in Waltham MA. The North Gate was built in 1935.

The playground inside Prospect Park, located at the eastern end of 10th Street, was one of 11 Works Progress Administration (WPA) parks that opened April 4, 1936.

In August 1941, the WPA completed the construction of extensive improvements to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The work was focused along the West border of Prospect Park between Garfield Place and 15th st., where the WPA built "marginal playgrounds, two sitting areas with sand pits, walks and bicycle path" to supplement the new bandshell, which had been added in 1939. Specifically, this work included: “a semi-circular sitting area, 100 feet in diameter,” with “a large central sand pit and a continuous row of benches for guardians of the children“ opposite 13th St., as well as a similar sitting area and sand...

"This collection of animals was formalized as the Prospect Park Zoo on Flatbush Avenue that opened to the public on July 3, 1935. A Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, the zoo was part of a massive citywide park improvement program initiated and executed by former Parks Commissioner Robert Moses... As with its WPA cousin in Central Park, the Prospect Park Zoo showcased limestone relief work by F.G.R. Roth, still visible today; the eleven bas-reliefs are based on Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories and depict Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves... As was the case with the Central Park Zoo, time and better...

On August 23, 1941, Parks announced the completion of a new WPA playground at Lincoln Rd. and Ocean Avenue (now known as the Lincoln Road Playground): "The playground at Ocean Avenue and Lincoln Road, approximately one-half acre in size, is semi-circular in shape, paved with asphalt so as to provide year round usage and equipped with a shower basin-, a sand pit, kindergarten swings, slides, see-saws and a pipe frame exercise unit. A large open area provides space for general play, skating, and organized games. Around the perimeter continuous benches have been provided for mothers and guardians. A new brick comfort station...

The Provincetown Advocate wrote in March 1940 that WPA funds were to be used to improve the Province Lands north of Provincetown, MA, now part of Cape Cod National Seashore. "Within a month 30 men will go to work on a project to improve and reforest the Province Lands with an allotment of $8,192 of WPA funds ..."

City park, formerly called Pioneer Park. The park includes the first cemetery plot in Franklin Township, with burials from the 1840s. Presumed attribution of the Creekside Shelter is confirmed by newspaper accounts at the time of construction.

The CCC established Camp Hawthorne (DG/G-119) in Nevada as a part of the Grazing Service's effort to restore the public domain. Vernard "Bud" Wilbur, a recruit stationed at the camp, described the work performed by the CCC in an oral history interview: “It was hard work, since we came from a city and weren’t used to this type of work eight hours a day…But they fed you well…We graded roads…We dug out a big reservoir about a mile above camp and firmed it all up with rocks and so forth, and then it was filled so that stockmen could use it...

Youth employed by the National Youth Administration carried out landscaping and upkeep work in Guayanilla's Public Plaza. Through its student work program, the National Youth Administration provided work opportunities and helped Puerto Rican youth graduate high school and college. "By the spring of 1935 though, 20 percent of the nation’s twenty-two million youngsters remained out of school and either on relief or wandering the country looking for work. In 1937, the President stated: 'I have determined, that we shall do something for the nation’s unemployed Youth…' Beneficiaries would be all male and female youths aged 16 to 25 not regularly attending...

"Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known Great House in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, northern New Mexico, was built by ancestral Pueblo people and occupied between AD 828 and 1126." (wikipedia) In 1936, the CCC Indian Division (CCC-ID) began an important ruins restoration project. The prehistoric city of Pueblo Bonito had suffered from extreme weather and temperature.  Native Indian workers in the CCC replaced walls and veneer to stabilize the area.The city remains an important site today.

In 1937, the WPA constructed this golf course for the city of Pueblo. Evidence indicates that the Army Corps of Engineers may have contributed. The course is now known as the Elmwood Golf Course.

"Begun in 1919, Pueblo Mountain Park is an early municipally owned automobile oriented, mountain park designed to offer Pueblo area residents easily accessible recreational facilities outside the urban environment. Most of the park's Rustic style picnic, lodging, and sports facilities were constructed during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration." (www.historycolorado.org)

Multiple New Deal agencies collaborated in the development of the Pueblo Zoo, a component of the City Park complex. The stunning stone structures at the zoo (and throughout the park) are still in use. "The two-and-one-half acre zoo contains an assortment of buildings and structures constructed between 1933 and 1940, utilizing native calcium sandstone quarried 25 miles west of Pueblo. The zoo exemplifies the trend toward exhibiting animals in more natural settings. The Pueblo Zoo was constructed during the Great Depression through the efforts of three New Deal agencies: the Public Works Administration; Civil Works Administration; and the Works Progress Administration."...

A WPA press release from Dec. 1937 stated: "Construction of bridle paths, rustic bridges and general landscaping in Puget Park, Tacoma, is scheduled under a WPA allotment of $7,416. The project started operating this week."

The NYC Department of Parks announced the official opening of Pulaski Park (named in honor of Revolutionary War soldier Casimir Pulaski) on October 11, 1939: "The park was named in honor of Pulaski ten years ago. The reconstruction was done by WPA forces under the jurisdiction of the Department of Parks. Included in the development is a small children's playground, equipped with apparatus and shower basin, a sitting area for mothers and children, and a large paved recreation area containing softball diamonds. There are also four handball courts, four horseshoe pitching courts, four shuffleboard courts, a volleyball and basketball court included in...

The WPA built a playground at Pulaski Park in 1940.

"Making the project possible was a bequest of $70,000 in the will of (late) Sophia Nolte Pullar. Her funds were largely used to build the Pullar" Community Building "in 1939 as a ... Public Works Administration project. The Pullar is one of the oldest artificial ice rinks still in operation in the United States." The P.W.A. supplied an $81,818 grant for the project, whose total cost was $164,653. PWA Docket No. MI 1628

A swimming pool and bathhouse at Pullen Park in Raleigh, North Carolina were constructed as part of a federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) project during the Great Depression. (ncsu.edu) The current status of the facility is unknown to Living New Deal.

Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) labor conducted water system expansion work in Dracut, Mass. WPA Bulletin: If you were asked to locate an additional water supply for your community probably the last place you would look would be a shaded, waterless forest. Engineers, generally a contrary lot, don't care for the obvious and a dry forest on such a quest wouldn't automatically be overlooked. Evidence of all this may be found in Dracut where, since its settlement in 1630, the town has been handicapped during dry summer weather by an inadequate water supply. When Federal funds became available a program to find...

Multiple New Deal agencies: the Public Works Administration (P.W.A.), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.), Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), and National Youth Administration (N.Y.A.) left an indelible imprint on Purdue University with many notable construction and improvement projects. Robert Topping: Elliott once summarized federal grants and expenditures made since 1933, pat of the national effort to shore up the United States economy. The PWA, for example, had spent $700,000 toward construction of five new buildings—two units of the women's residence halls (Windsor Halls), the Executive Building (Hovde Hall of Administration), a fieldhouse and gymnasium (Lambert Fieldhouse), and an addition to the Purdue Memorial...

This horseshoe-shaped stadium was built by the New Deal Public Works Administration in 1937 for the Ashland Public Schools at a cost of $6,500.00. The stadium was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day that same year. The building remains in good condition and continues to serve the Ashland Public Schools and the community of Paul Blazer High School. In 1996, the district added a new entrance gate to augment the original structure.    

The dam creating this reservoir was undertaken in 1931-32, creating a new body of water that stretched between Crawford County in Pennsylvania and Ashtabula County in Ohio. The adjacent parks and improvements in Ohio and Pennsylvania were a Civilian Conservation Corps project completed in 1938. Pymantuning Lake is the largest lake in Pennsylvania.

150 federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers worked to transform Pyne Point Park in northern Camden, New Jersey during the Great Depression. In addition to constructing baseball diamonds, as of April 1936 WPA workers were "building a roadway, terracing, planting trees and laying a cinder track." Previously, the area was an "unsightly stretch ... with piles of dirt and craters that were more like the surface of the moon than an athletic field on the earth."

The WPA constructed the first nine holes of this golf course, also known as the Baker City Golf Club, in 1936. From the club website: "In 1936 the WPA started constructing the 9-hole public golf course off Indiana Avenue, in Baker City, Oregon.  It was replacing the 9 hole private City Golf and Country Club created in 1924 at the end of Washington Street.  The clubhouse then was the Fireside.  The new public course was to be known as the Municipal Golf Links."

"The Quaking Aspen Cabin is a treasure in time. The cabin was originally built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCCs) and was used by the Forest Service to house fire patrol, recreation workers, and other personnel."

"Quartz Mountain State Park (since 2002 called Quartz Mountain Nature Park) is one of ten original sites contemplated by the Oklahoma legislature in 1935, when it appropriated twenty-five thousand dollars to create a State Park Commission to work with the National Park Service in securing funds and labor through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a federal government job program. The legislature asked local residents to purchase the land and donate it to the state. Citizens of Greer County purchased 158.3 acres of land adjacent to Lake Altus for $51.58. Additional acreage has been added over the intervening years, bringing the...

The federal Civil Works Administration (CWA) and, later, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted substantial construction and improvement work at Queen City Park in Tuscaloosa, Alabama during the 1930s. CWA labor constructed roads and tennis courts, and drained fields for baseball diamonds. WPA labor constructed nature walks featuring stone walkways and bridges. The Queen City Park Pool was a WPA project as well.

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided funding and labor for construction of what was then known as the Queen City Pool and Pool House at Queen City Park in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The WPA supplied $100,000 of the $125,000 total cost of the construction project. The facility now serves as the Mildred Westervelt Warner Transportation Museum. Wikipedia: "Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentice Don Buel Schuyler, the Queen City Pool served the citizens of Tuscaloosa from 1943 through it closure in 1989. It was constructed as a ... Works Project Administration relief project of the Great Depression. The site features a poured concrete...

Parks acquired this land to the West and the South of the WPA's Queensbridge Housing development in 1939. The press release announcing the completion of a WPA playground on the site in July 1941 explained: "The southerly section lying alongside and under the bridge structure has been developed for specialized intensive forms of recreation adapted to the needs of various age groups. Central to this section is a new comfort station located on the line of 10 Street and surrounded by play apparatus for small children: sand pit, wading pool, swings, etc., and extending to the east a series of game...

"Early in the 1930s there was a CCC camp in area and they built ... many trails in that wilderness area near Quemado Lake."

"The Quimby Athletic Field of Gardiner was enlarged to make a combination baseball and football field at a cost of $17,257.08 of which $1,368.50 was spent for material. There were 11,700 cubic yards of earth moved and 300 cubic yards of ledge had to be taken out. All was done by hand. Two grandstands 50 feet long were constructed from lumber salvaged at the Veteran's Administration Grounds at Togus. They were roofed with metal roofing, painted with a heavy coat of asphalt aluminum paint. These stands will seat 300 people each. A dressing room was built beneath one and a lavatory and...

"The Division of Grazing (Grazing Service as of 1939) operated the greatest number of CCC programs in the state. There were several reasons for this. First of all, Nevada has the largest public domain (nonallocated federal acreage) of any of the forty-eight states. With little trouble, Nevadas elected officials and stockmen easily persuaded national CCC officials to approve requests for several new grazing camps, notwithstanding national CCC program budget cuts. Second, following passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934, a large workforce was needed to implement its ambitious provisions. Even with CCC assistance, the amount of work needing to...

Description of a project undertaken by the W.P.A. in 1938: "Quinobequin Road, Newton, Washington Street to Boylston Street; to construct a pea stone and stone dust walk 5 feet wide and a planting space 10 feet wide, both 9,400 feet long."