Rurban Homes (demolished) – El Monte CA

Description

In 1935, the Department of the Interior’s newly created Department of Subsistence Homesteads (DSH) established a community of 100 “small farms” and “rurban homes” in El Monte, CA. Ross H. Gast, an editor at the Los Angeles Times’ Farm and Garden Magazine and an official with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, oversaw the project.

“[Architect Joseph] Weston’s designs proved economical, pragmatic, and aesthetically pleasing. The Los Angeles Times celebrated the El Monte architect’s dedication to form and function, noting that he had figured out how to ‘shorten a room a few inches and save enough to get a better kitchen sink, and where to put his doors so Mr. and Mrs. and the kids can save steps to and from various corners of the outdoors.’ The federal government applauded his efforts as well: ‘probably in no other instance has greater care been taken in the matter, type, design, and placement of houses than at Rurban Homes.’ […] Visitors from 22 states and four countries descended upon the project to see its visionary progress. Gast estimated that nearly 100,000 visited” (Reft, From Small Farming to Urban Agriculture).

Thousands of applications were made to live on El Monte’s homesteads. “The average income of the El Monte small farmers amounted to $971 a year…. […] Estimated total costs to homesteaders ranged form $2,600 to $3,000, depending on location and size of the home. When the first families moved in in November 1935, they assumed a 40 year monthly payment of $23.34, a bargain when compared to what private lenders offered at the time” (Reft, From Small Farming to Urban Agriculture).

Dorothea Lange photographed El Monte’s subsistence homesteads as part of her work for the Farm Security Administration. The homes have since been demolished.