- City:
- Wayland, MA
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Civic Facilities, Schools, City and Town Halls
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding, Work Relief Programs, Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
- Started:
- 1934
- Completed:
- 1935
- Designers:
- Charles M. Baker, Frank I. Cooper
Description
The historic Wayland Town Hall building was constructed as the town’s high school during the Great Depression. It was built as a New Deal project, undertaken with federal Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds. The P.W.A. supplied a $30,025 grant for the project, whose total cost was $105,871. Construction occurred between Nov. 1934 and Nov. 1935. The school, designed in Colonial Revival style, was occupied in Sept. 1936.
Our primary photo, on display at Wayland Town Hall, shows the building amid extraordinary flooding of the Sudbury River after a historic hurricane in Sept. 1938. (The W.P.A. conducted extensive work helping this region recover from said storm.)
P.W.A. Docket No. MA 7042.
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) constructed a 400-foot road leading to the building, in 1935.
Source notes
National Archives: Record Group 135: Public Works Administration; Projects Control Division; Entry 52: Indices to Non-Federal Projects; Report No. 5: Status of All Completed Non-Federal Allotted Projects, page 11. https://www.wayland.ma.us/pages/waylandma_bcomm/historicalcom/WAY.196_CochituateRd_41.pdf Official reports of the town of Wayland for the Year Ending December 31, 1935 (pp. 144-5). https://archive.org/details/officialreportso1933waylSite originally submitted by Evan Kalish on January 9, 2017.
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