Start Year: 1934

Located in downtown Springdale, the Beely-Johnson Post 139 American Legion Hut was built in 1934 by American Legion members and local citizens. A kitchen was added to the building’s interior in 1937 by the Legion Auxiliary. The one-story building is constructed of rough-cut native stone quarried from a mountain east of Springdale. There have been no major changes to the building over the years. At first, Legion members met in the upstairs rooms of various downtown businesses. By 1929, plans were under way for the construction of a post hut, but due to a drop in membership during the early years...

"The Lee Bunch Post #22 was formed in Clarksville in February 1919 when fifteen veterans applied to form a Johnson County post. It was named for Bunch, a resident of Batson who was the first Johnson Countian to die in World War I. The group initially met in local homes, churches and clubs, but in February 1932 the Civic Club sold the post for one dollar an island between the main stream and west fork of Spadra Creek near downtown Clarksville. In 1934, the Civil Works Administration, which helped build Legion huts across the state, approved Project No. 36- 34 T...

Mattamuskeet Migratory Bird (later Wildlife) Refuge was established in 1934, primarily as a refuge for migratory birds along the Atlantic flyway.  It was one of the first refuges created under President Franklin Roosevelt, an ardent bird fancier and conservationist, and was assembled and administered by the Bureau of Biological Survey (reorganized into the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1940). The refuge is covers 50,000 acres on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in Hyde County, North Carolina.  It encompasses Mattamuskeet Lake, the largest natural lake in North Carolina, measuring 18 miles by 7 miles, but only 2-3 feet deep. The Mattamuskeet pumping station at the...

The Army Corps of Engineers, the Public Works Administration, and the National Industrial Recovery Administration funded and conducted improvement operations in the Port Allen Harbor between 1934 and 1935. The work consisted of creating a 1,200 foot “rubble-mound breakwater,” and dredging the “harbor basin about 1,000 feet wide, 1,500 feet long, and 35 feet deep; and an entrance channel 500 feet wide and 35 feet deep.” The estimated cost of the work in 1933 was $ 880,000 for new work, of which 200,000 was the contribution of local entities. The estimated cost for annual maintenance was $15,000. In October 1935, about $680,000 were...

The Army Corps of Engineers, the Public Works Administration, and the National Industrial Recovery Administration funded and conducted improvement operations in the Honolulu Harbor between 1934 and 1935. The work consisted of the enlargement of the “entrance channel to 40 feet deep and 500 feet wide, easing the curve where the entrance channel joins the inner harbor; deepening the harbor basin to 35 feet, for a general width of 1,520 feet; dredging to 35 feet along the reserved channel, a channel 900 feet wide and 1000 feet long, and thence a channel along the northerly side of the reserve channel 400...

The Kaiser Pass Road (opened in 1927) resulted in increased travel to Mono Hot Springs on the west side of the Sierra Nevada near Huntington Lake – one of the best-known hot springs in California. Therefore, the Forest Service decided to utilize the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to upgrade the facilities there. In 1934, the CCC men constructed a bathhouse and several auxiliary buildings over the concrete-walled springs on the south side of the San Joaquin River.  On the north side of the river, the CCC built a campground. The buildings were torn down in 1963 and a new bathhouse built on...

The New Deal dam in Coggon, located in northeastern Linn County, was replaced in 1967 by the current dam, known as the Buffalo Creek Park Dam.41 The New Deal dam was built in order to restore Manhattan Lake in Coggon. Construction began in September 1934 with labor supplied by FERA. Although the date of completion was not discovered, it was originally estimated that the dam would take four months to construct, suggesting an expected completion date in early 1935. However, just as with the FERA dam in Quasqueton, the construction of the Coggon Dam took considerably longer than originally estimated....

Plans for the Quasqueton Dam were developed in May and June 1934, shortly after the CWA ended. Federal funding was initially provided by FERA. However, the construction took much longer than originally planned, so the completion of the dam was funded in the fall of 1935 by the WPA. As with other New Deal dams in Iowa, the material was supplied by the State Fish and Game Commission, and the labor by the federal government (FERA or WPA). Construction started in June 1934. The dam was 6½ feet high and 250 feet long. It was identified in newspapers more than...

The Mayflower School was built and the cost of $9,500 by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with the help of a PWA grant. Lester Troster, a local architect and superintendent of the regional Bureau of Indian Affairs, designed the two story structure.1 The architectural features include Colonial Revival elements. "The accentuated doors with decorative pediments and pilasters, symmetrically-balanced windows and center door, double hung sashes and multiple panes are indicative of the Colonial Revival (1880-1955) style." "The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs built Mayflower School in 1933-1934 to serve as a model for Native schools in Alaska. The Bureau wanted the school to provide...

The homestead housing in Bethlehem, St. Croix was built by the Virgin Islands Company with the aid of PWA funding. A partnership program between the Government of the United States and the people of the Virgin Islands, the Virgin Islands Company sought to expand the homesteading and housing programs alongside industrial development on the islands. In Bethlehem, in addition to running the homesteading and housing programs, the Virgin Islands Company took on the reconstruction of the Bethlehem sugar mill, the island’s largest sugar mill. The 1934 Annual Report of the Governor of the Virgin Islands provides details about a homestead housing program funded with...