Start Year: 1933

The Lincoln Park Public Library was originally funded by the Carnegie Foundation and built in 1907. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) rehabilitated the library after it was damaged by the March 1933 Long Beach earthquake.  It appears that the reconstruction was thorough (but confirmation is needed). The library was destroyed by a fire in 1972. Suzanne Miller's series of WPA Federal Art Project (FAP) murals were relocated to the new Billie Jean King Main Library.

The first East Shore highway along the Berkeley waterfront was built by the New Deal in 1933-34, with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) and relief labor from the Civil Works Administration (CWA). The PWA had financed the Bay Bridge and provide addition funds for access roads to the bridge from the East Bay, including the East Shore Highway. It was "one of the major arterials connecting with the San Francisco-East Bay Bridge," according to a Berkeley Civic Affairs Report of 1933. The WPA built the Berkeley Aquatic Park, which is formed by the causeway carrying the East Shore highway.  A...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built paths and rock walls in the University of California Botanical Garden, including a rock bridge over Strawberry Creek.  The CCC enrollees worked out of a camp in Strawberry Canyon in 1933-34.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked at Mount Diablo State Park for nine years, 1933-1942. Along with such notable features as the Summit Building, campgrounds and picnic areas (see linked project pages), the CCC 'boys' made many other improvements to the park.  These include hiking trails, entrance gates, retaining walls, drinking fountains, comfort stations, turn-outs and observation areas, residences for park staff, barracks for fire crews, a mess hall and other service buildings, and a water supply system.  The State Parks Department is quite cognizant of its debt to the New Deal for improving all the parks existing in the 1930s, as noted...

Old Santa Ana City Hall was constructed in 1935 at a cost of $126,000, funded by city bonds and a Public Works Administration (PWA) grant. There is a plaque in the lobby (which we are waiting to photograph). It was designed by prominent Southern California architect W. Horace Austin of Long Beach, who had designed the rather similar Masonic Temple at Sycamore and Fifth Streets a few years earlier. Austin’s credits also include the Bowers Museum and many Long Beach commissions, such as the 1904 Long Beach City Hall , several schools, the original Buffum’s Department Store , the Long Beach...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) made extensive improvements to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park on the central California coast, developing it for public recreational use after the state parks commission acquired the land in 1933.  The enrollees worked out of Camp Big Sur from 1933 to 1941.  We believe Camp Big Sur was located either at the present Main Campground or at the Group Picnic Area. The CCC built campgrounds, picnic areas, a campfire center, and several stone restrooms (comfort stations). They also constructed the main lodge with a post office and cabins.  To this, they added a park headquarters and administration...

Red brick and beautiful stone detailing adorn this historic New Deal post office, whose construction began in 1933.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was present in the newly-minted Death Valley National Monument  from 1933 to 1942.   At the time, Death Valley had almost no developed roads or other infrastructure.  So the CCC ‘boys’ laid out the basic road system, grading over 500 miles (800 km) of roads.  Most of the modern roads in the park are, therefore, paved and improved versions of CCC roads.    The CCC also built roads and trails to points of scenic interest, such as Ubehebe crater, Artists' Palette and Golden Canyon.  The longest and highest trail was to Telescope Peak in the Panamint Mountains...

From 1933 to 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers developed Castle Crags State Park for public use.  CCC enrollees from a camp at Castella built "the park’s roads, trails, infrastructure and buildings in the 'park rustic' style of native wood and stone." (State Parks brochure).  Evidently, some of the CCC workers at Castle Crags were African American (see photo below). The state purchased the land in 1933 from a bankrupt private resort with a mineral springs, "Castle Rock Spring", which had fallen into disrepair.  The CCC workers built a trail down to the river, a new suspension bridge to replace an old, unsafe bridge for...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) set up five camps in the East Bay hills, starting in 1933-34 and carrying on until 1942.  From those camps, the "CCC boys" set out into the newly-created East Bay regional parks to do a wide range of improvements, such as clearing brush, planting trees, building roads and trails, and laying out picnic areas. The first camp was set up at Wildcat Canyon at the present site of the Tilden Environmental Education (Nature) Center.  About 3,500 young men rotated through Camp Wildcat Canyon.  As Eugene Swartling, who supervised the camp, recalls, "these young men were not being...