Cottonwood Community Club House – Cottonwood AZ

Description

The Cottonwood Community Club House – also known as the Community Center or Civic Center – was built in 1939 with the help of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). 

The WPA hired the relief workers to do the labor, many of whom came from the local area, while funds for materials did not come from city government, as was usual, but through volunteer subscriptions by local citizens. The local effort was led by the women’s Cottonwood Community Civic Club, for which the club house was intended (on land donated to them three years earlier).

The building is eye-catching, with walls of large, round river stones, designed by Lescher and Mahoney, a noted architectural firm in Phoenix. It has a sturdy, fortress look, with massive wooden doors, a sort of cross between the fashionable Pueblo style of the time and the ancient indigenous ruins at nearby Tuzigoot National Monument.

The Cottonwood Civic Center was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (along with much the Old Downtown) in 1989 and renovated in 2018. There is a clear sense of civic pride in the building, as shown by the large celebratory history plaque out front (on a stone plinth) and a front walkway of pavers etched with names of local contributors to the recent renovation.

The history plaque errs, however, in saying that the CCC restored the ancient Tuzigoot pueblo; that was done by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and the Civil Works Administration (CWA). Understandably, the many New Deal ‘alphabet soup’ agencies are often confused in local histories.