Start Year: 1937

Piedmont High School was expanded under the New Deal with the help of Public Works Administration (PWA) funding.  A new library and classroom building were built, 1937-39. There had been three previous efforts to replace temporary buildings at schools in Piedmont in the 1920s, because about one-third of Piedmont students were being taught in temporary buildings (derisively called ‘shacks’ by the locals). All the bond issues lost (Tribune Dec. 1933).  After the school board sought and gained a promise of $83,000 in funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1933, a new bond issue for $233,000 passed in December of that year....

Frank C. Havens Elementary School was originally built in 1910 and expanded under the New Deal with the help of Public Works Administration (PWA) funding and Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief labor and materials.  A new five-classroom wing and an auditorium were built on the eastern edge of the school grounds. The lovely auditorium, renamed the Ellen Driscoll Community Playhouse, survives. There had been three previous efforts to replace temporary buildings at schools in Piedmont in the 1920s, because about one-third of Piedmont students were being taught in temporary buildings (derisively called 'shacks' by the locals). All the bond issues lost (Tribune 1942)....

In 1937, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built an extension of the sanitary sewer up Broadway Terrace from Harbord Drive to Sheridan Road (just below the brow of the hills near Lake Temescal).  (Oakland Tribune 1937) The current state of the sewer line is unknown. Broadway Terrace is a major artery with water, gas, telephone and internet lines, and the concrete roadbed has been repeatedly cut through and repaired.   Judging from the placement of manhole covers, there appears to be two sewer lines running parallel along this stretch of road and another, probably older, line in the old Broadway Terrace...

Originally named the Willamette Highway Tunnel, the 905 feet-long Salt Creek Tunnel completed the Oregon Forest Highway Project that ran through remote areas of the Willamette National Forest to link US Highway 99 near Eugene with US 97 on the east side of the Cascades. The Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) designed the tunnel and its masonry rock portals and contracted with the Portland firm Orino-Birkemeier & Saremai to construct the project in December 1937. The length of the tunnel along with the remote location and rugged terrain introduced challenges with its construction. Oregon Department of Transportation historian Robert Hadlow notes...

Electric power plant built with the support of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Today, the structure serves as a county historical society museum.

In 1937, 250 WPA enrollees went to work on a recreation center on the site of the defunct Brightwood Reservoir in Rock Creek Park.  The Washington Post (1937) reported: "Dynamite yesterday blasted a hole through the obsolete Sixteenth Street Reservoir so that steam shovels could begin razing the plant for an athletic field and playground to be erected there.... The recreation center will incorporate 16 new tennis courts, a field house, baseball diamond, a football and soccer field and areas where football, softball and lacrosse may be played.  Tennis courts now on the land will remain for the time being." Today, the...

After a fire destroyed the Brookhaven High School in March 1937, the city began making plans for a replacement. In October, the city voted in favor of a $50,000 bond to help finance the new building, combined with insurance of $60,000 and a Works Progress Administration grant of $90,067. R. W. Naef was the architect. The new building had over 30 classrooms, and a total cost of approximately $250,000 and could serve 1500 students. The first class graduated May 1939 after completion of the new school in April.

The State Highway Division Region 1 Office, originally known as the State Highway Division Office and State Police Headquarters Building, was constructed in 1938 by Works Progress Administration (WPA) employees. The total cost of the building, landscaped grounds, and associated out-buildings was $118,287 with $78,541 provided by WPA funds and the remaining provided by the state. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) state office building sits adjacent to Pacific Highway 99E, Oregon’s first “superhighway.” This section of the roadway named McLoughlin Boulevard had only been operating for three years when the rustic style building opened its doors for use as the...

The Works Progress Administration completed repairs at the Delanco school in Delanco NJ. "Just when things looked as if they might be getting better, they found in 1937 that the walls in the· auditorium were faulty and unsafe. They were rebuilt by the Works Projects Administration - more familiarly the WPA." The facility was located at Walnut, Hickory, Union and Chestnut St. It was removed circa 1962.

The old county jail was demolished in 1937 and a new jail constructed by the WPA. Steel equipment from the old jail was reused. The new jail was closer to the court building, built at the rear of the courthouse with a "closed bridgelike connection" (Daily Herald, 1937, p. 2) to give passage between jail and court. Architect was Vinson B. Smith, Jr. and the project employed 40 men. County furnished $6,000 of material in-kind and WPA provided $18,384. The facility was completed in 1938.