Indiana State Fairgrounds: WPA Barns – Indianapolis IN

Description

“The State Fair Board has recently restored a number of these wooden buildings. They were all built with WPA funds. The WPA was one of several of FDR’s New Deal alphabet soup programs designed to help jobless workers during the Great Depression. The WPA provided funds for various public work projects around the state, and a good many here at the Fair Grounds. These barns were built to replace some of the older horse barns on the Fair grounds. Many of the buildings on the fairgrounds during the 1890s were temporary buildings, or were moved from the Camp Morton site. Using WPA funds allowed the Fair Board to make new modern barns during a time when funding was very limited. Some of the modern features of these barns are the raised clerestory level for better ventilation and light and concrete floors for better sanitation for the animals.”