- City:
- Santa Rosa, CA
- Site Type:
- Infrastructure and Utilities, Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels, Sidewalks and Stairs
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Completed:
- 1941
- Quality of Information:
- Moderate
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
These projects involved street improvements, curb, gutter, and sidewalk construction. They resulted in 8,875 ft of streets, 20,122 ft of curbs and gutters, and 15,792 sq ft of sidewalks. The only streets actually identified in the WPA records are Mendocino Ave from College Ave to the north city limit, and also Fourth St from E. St to the east city limit.
The photo here shows that a short section of WPA sidewalk also survives on the south side of Spencer Avenue, just east of its intersection with Monroe Street. It is a standard 4’ residential walk made of parallel 24” x 18”panels. Local aggregate was mixed into the portland cement to give it a textured finish.
Source notes
Goddard, Paulene. The Impact of the Works Projects Administration (WPA) in Sonoma County. M.A. thesis. Further information provided by John Murphey.Contribute to this Site
We welcome contributions of additional information on any New Deal site.
Submit More Information or Photographs for this New Deal Site3 comments on “Street Improvements – Santa Rosa CA”
Join the Conversation
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Karen
Gabriel Milner
Jeremy Nichols
Spencer Avenue, not Spence Avenue.
Thank you for pointing this out– we’ve made the correction.
In 1938-39, WPA workers were involved in making street signs for a project in Santa Rosa. The project involved changing addresses in Santa Rosa Township from the old “route and box” to street addresses as in the city limits. Santa Rosa was one of the first places in the nation to have this done and it made the national news. The change required naming roads that had never been named and renaming other roads whose names changed from point to point in the county. As part of this project, County Surveyor Wallace made a map showing all the newly-named roads affected by the project. For years, I have been searching unsuccessfully for this map. Any new suggestions on what might have happened to this map would be appreciated.