Start Year: 1939

The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center began life as the National Naval Medical Center under the New Deal. Congress appropriated the funds in 1937 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected the site in Bethesda, Maryland.   Architect Paul Cret designed a magnificent Moderne building with a tower that still delights (though much obscured by subsequent additions to the complex).  Construction began in 1939.  FDR laid the cornerstone of the famous tower on Armistice Day 1940, and the center opened soon thereafter (probably some time in 1941, not 1940 as most sources say). According to the official Center website, "The President’s vision was to...

This former high school building was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1939-1940. The new school put 105 men to work for eight months. This building would serve as a high school until 1988. It was sold to the Old High School Association in 1995 who started restoring it as a Museum and Cultural Center for Sallisaw. The building burned down in June 2004. Arson was suspected. Only the facade of the front entrance remains.

The Minnesota Machinery Museum is housed in the former Hanley Falls School built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1939.

This beautiful structure, the Williamsport Town Hall, was built by the WPA in 1939.

Text on Historical Marker at Yellow jacket Stadium: "In 1939, work began to replace Rhome Field, where Cleburne high played home football games for twenty years. The works projects administration (WPA) provided most of the funding for the new $80,000 stadium built from concrete and rough cut Somervell county limestone. It opened in fall 1941, with ivy-covered stands, pilasters, seating for 3800, ticket windows, and dressing rooms. The stadium has hosted football games, other sports, and community events."

The historic post office in Monticello, Indiana was constructed in 1939 with federal Treasury Department funds. The building, which houses an example of New Deal artwork, is still in service.

The historic post office building in Tonawanda, New York was constructed between 1939 and 1940, and "is one of a number of post offices in New York State designed by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department under Louis A. Simon. The building is in the Colonial Revival style and features a central pavilion crowned by a cupola and flanked by end pavilions with gable roofs. The interior once featured a mural by Symeon Shimin, but it was removed and has disappeared. An addition to the north was added in 1964."

The historic (and current) Scotia, New York branch post office was constructed during the Great Depression with federal Treasury Department funds. "In 1935, as a relief measure during the Depression, Congress authorized construction of the current building, replacing an old house and garage at the site. Louis A. Simon, then Supervising Architect at the Treasury Department, handled the design, as he did for many of the other post offices built in New York during the 1930s. His design for Scotia's was almost identical to one used for four other post offices in small communities around the state: Akron, Horseheads, Middleburgh and Oxford....

The Rhinebeck post office was built in 1939 in the stone Dutch Colonial style popular around the Hudson Valley. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took a lively interest in the local architecture in Dutchess County, his family's ancestral home, insisted that the model for this post office should be "Kipsbergen," an 18th century Rhinebeck home occupied by his ancestors, the Beekmans.  That house had burned in the early 20th century; some of its stones were used in construction of the post office. FDR, Postmaster General James Farley and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. were all present at the dedication ceremony on May...

The historic post office in downtown Great Neck, New York "was built in 1939-40 and designed by consulting architect William Dewey Foster (1890-1958) for the Office of the Supervising Architect. It is a one story, pentagonal shaped skeletal frame building clad with plucked textured buff limestone in the Classical Revival style. It features a semicircular entrance portico supported by four square columns." (Wikipedia)