- City:
- Marietta, GA
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Stadiums
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Description
In 1940 and 1941, the Marietta Board of Education and the WPA collaborated on modernizing the athletic field of Marietta High School. Work included grading the field to facilitate drainage, the construction of concrete stands, the installation of lights for outdoor games, and the erection of a reticulated rock wall around the entire stadium. According to Guy Northcutt, a member of the city’s board of education who oversaw the work, as long as the city provided the materials, the WPA would cover the labor expenses. Upon completion of the project, the Marietta Daily Journal boasted that the city had the “finest high school football field in the state.” In a 1973 oral history interview, Guy Northcutt said of the WPA workers who built the wall: “They did something that will last for generations.”
Source notes
Marietta Daily Journal, 9 May 1940. Marietta Daily Journal, 16 October 1941. Cobb County Oral History Series, No. 31, Interview with Guy Haynes Northcutt Conducted and Edited by Kathleen Sherlock Scott and Thomas A. Scott, 30 March 1973. Georgia Room, Cobb County Public Library.Site originally submitted by Mark Barron on March 23, 2013.
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