- City:
- Nashville, TN
- Site Type:
- Archaeology and History, Historical Restoration
- New Deal Agencies:
- Works Progress Administration (WPA), Work Relief Programs
- Started:
- 1937
- Completed:
- 1938
- Contractors:
- J. D. Tyner, Supervising Engineer
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- Yes
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The New Deal did a great deal of work restoring and improving historic battlefields around the country in the 1930s. As part of this effort, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) restored Fort Negley in 1937-38. This was an important Confederate fortification during the Civil War.
Using the original plans, 800 relief workers of the WPA reconstructed the limestone fort at a cost of $84,000.
Fort Nagley reopened to the public in 1938. It is still an historical attraction in Nashville and has a new visitor’s center and informative historical markers.
Source notes
Fort Negley's History. Retrieved from https://www.nashville.gov/Parks-and-Recreation/Historic-Sites/Fort-Negley/History.aspx
Van West, C. (2001). Tennessee’s New Deal Landscape: A Guidebook. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
WPA Federal Writers Project. (1939). Tennessee: A Guide to the State. New York: Viking Press.
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration, Information Service, Primary File, 1936-42, Box 15, Folder 290-B.
Fort Negley History, City of Nashville website
Site originally submitted by Susan Allen & Brian Holler on December 17, 2014.
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