Marked Sites

The Forrest City Public Library was constructed between 1938-39 and was designed by the Little Rock, Arkansas, firm of Sanders & Ginocchio. The PWA provided a grant of $10,791 for the project, whose total cost was $24,242. It was the first purpose-built public library in the city and was funded by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works as Project No. ARK. 1147-F. It has continuously functioned as a library since its completion. The only alteration to the building occurred in 1976, when a rear addition was constructed. The interior still mostly appears the same way it did historically. Forrest City Library:...

The Harrison N.J. Public Library was constructed in 1936-8 as a New Deal project: the Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a $42,476 grant for the project. "The overall dimensions of the building are 94 by 60 feet. In the basement there are a community room, staff room, workroom, boiler room, and toilets. On the first floor are a reading room, a stack room, and librarian's office. There is an exhibit room on the mezzanine floor. It is fireproof with concrete floors, steel trusses, and brick bearing walls. The roofing is slate. It was completed in February 1938 at a construction cost of $79,041...

The historic former post office building in Floral Park, New York was constructed with Treasury Department and Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) funds in 1936. The building presently serves as the Floral Park Public Library. Postal operations have been moved to a new facility a few hundred feet down Tulip Ave. "Floral Park is a residential community in Nassau County on Long Island, on the eastern edge of New York City. Its population in 1930 was 10,016, and its postal receipts for 1935 were $47,624. The building is 84 by 90 feet in plan and is one story and part basement in height...

The Works Progress Administration remodeled of a two-story brick structure into a one-story library and community hall, 1938-1939. The construction costs were $4,o62 in federal funds and $348 in city funds.

The Works Progress Administration built sidewalks at the south east corner of Lincoln and North Main Street in the central business district of Walnut Creek, CA.

The WPA built the Lincoln County courthouse in Star City between 1941 and 1943. The building was designed by the architectural firm Wittenberg & Delony, financed with a WPA grant of $135,000, and built with the assistance of WPA laborers.

The Works Progress Administration built the County Fair Exhibition Building at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds in Tyler, MN.

San Antonio's Board of Commissioners created the San Antonio Housing Authority (SAHA) on June 17, 1937. On September 1, 1937, President Roosevelt signed the United States Housing Act of 1937. This created the United States Housing Authority (USHA) and provided $500 million for subsidies to be paid from the U.S. government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) like SAHA to improve living conditions for low-income families. SAHA made applications to the USHA for funds and the USHA agreed to provide financing for five projects; Alazan Courts, Apache Courts, Lincoln Heights Courts, Wheatley Courts and Victoria Courts. San Antonio enforced segregation in...

The farm of Thomas and Sarah Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's father and stepmother. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) reconstructed a reproduction of their cabin on the site, along with building a maintenance barn and gift shop. A CCC camp, Camp Shiloh, was located at the site. Its enrollees were WWI veterans.

In 1937, artist Peter David Edstrom made a stone sculpture of Florence Nightingale for Lincoln Park in Los Angeles, CA. The park is located a block away from the county hospital. Nightingale is depicted in a nurse's dress and hat. Her hands—which were broken and badly reformed—hold a candle. A matching statue by Edstrom is located at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, CA.

WPA workers developed the Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum from 1935 to 1936. Work also included landscaping and the building of cabins and a lake. From the State of Indiana's website on the attraction: "The Lincoln Pioneer Village & Museum houses hundreds of fascinating artifacts from the area’s historic past including a hutch made by Abraham Lincoln’s father, Thomas Lincoln. The Pioneer Village features 14 Lincoln-era replica cabins from Spencer County. This site was originally a WPA project." From the Evansville Sunday Courier and Journal, July 5, 1936: ROCKPORT, July 4—With both the democratic and republican nominees for governor on the program,...

The PWA provided funds for the construction of Lincoln School in 1940. From Wikipedia: In addition to Lincoln, the new elementary schools included Monroe, Madison, Washington, Jefferson, and McKinley. Lincoln was the only new facility to be built on the location of one of the older buildings. The floor plans for all six school buildings was designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Smith & Childs, and they are all similar in layout. Local architects were employed to design the stylistic features for each building. Davenport architect Howard S. Muesse was chosen for Lincoln School. The building was constructed by Langlois Construction...

This massive 5' x 132' mural titled "History of Flight" is located in the library at Lindbergh STEAM Academy in Long Beach, CA. Jean Goodwin Ames and Arthur Ames designed the mural under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration Art Project (WPAAP); Serena Swanson, Dorr Bothwell, Elizabeth Mills, and Mary Stanfield painted it. Completed in 1940, the mural depicts aviation history "through an array of cultures, empires, countries and eras including the Turkish/Persians period, Greek Gods, the early modern period depicted through the Renaissance, and the modern era illustrated through the British colonies in the 1700s, the flight of a hot...

The Little Buffalo River Bridge outside Parthenon, Arkansas, which carries State Highway 327, was constructed with the assistance of the federal Works Progress Administration in 1939. The bridge is still in use today.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) undertook several projects in Little Cottonwood Canyon, southeast of Salt Lake City.  These works included a stone bridge, improvements at the fledgling Alta ski area and improvements to the road up the canyon.  Exactly what part of the road was done by the WPA teams is unknown. There is a plaque at the Little Cottonwood Creek bridge that states the road project took place from 1935 to 1937.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA), in conjunction with Salt Lake County, constructed this elegant, three-arch stone bridge across Little Cottonwood Creek at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The stone is undoubtedly taken from the famous Temple Quarry, which is just a few hundred yards up the creek. The site has a plaque on a boulder (see photo) The WPA also contributed to building the road up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Alta Ski Resort, where WPA teams worked on the ski area in its earliest days. On the downstream side of the bridge is a diversion canal for either irrigation or urban water...

Littlepage was the first low income development built in West Virginia. Littlepage Terrace was the second WPA public housing project for low income residents authorized in West Virginia and was designated Project No. WVA 1-2; however, delays acquiring the land for Washington Manor (WVA 1-1) resulted it the completion of Littlepage Terrace first. Littlepage Manor and property were bought in 1938. Construction began in 1940, with the housing project opening later that year. The eight building complex for white housing. The project was demolished in the first decade of the 2000s and replaced with modern low income housing after the completion of...

The first of the four known New Deal dams constructed in the Wapsipinicon watershed, the Littleton Dam, started as a locally funded project. Its construction was supported by the State Fish and Game Commission because the dam fit into the state’s 25-year conservation plan. As originally proposed in August 1933, the state would supply the materials for the dam and a local committee would raise the funds for the labor. Construction of the dam started around November 1, 1933, using locally funded labor. Within days, however, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was established, and by the third week in November...

This site, a former sanatorium, holds a collection of over 200 works funded by the New Deal, with roughly 25 paintings at a time on display. The online archive can be accessed here. From the New Deal Gallery website: Our Murray Hill site was visited by Eleanor Roosevelt and chosen for the Mount Morris Tuberculosis Sanatorium when FDR was Governor of New York. The complex was the recipient of a collection of 230+ easel paintings. The sanatorium opened in 1936 and operated until 1971. The campus was turned over to the county in 1973. Since that time our building and most...

A W.P.A. shield-style plaque embedded in the sidewalk, on South side of Lloyd Ave., east of Hope St., identifies the sidewalk as a W.P.A. construction. The plaque is located adjacent to Erickson Gym, directly across the street from the direct entrance to the Moses Brown School.

Text of the state historical marker reads: "In 1934, the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) built an auditorium on the original Locke Hill school grounds. Federal workers constructed the limestone building out of stone from a nearby quarry. Built to address the county superintendent’s call for school improvements, the auditorium served as a central community space. Following post-war growth, the school’s infrastructure no longer met increased student needs. In 1976, the Locke Hill School was rebuilt less than one mile away to accommodate more students and to meet new building standards. The historic auditorium exists as a longstanding testament to San...

C. K. Colley and Sons designed the "graceful yet understated Tudor Revival" (Van West, 2001, p. 102) school on the site of the former Lockeland mansion with the assistance of the Public Works Administration (PWA) during the Great Depression. The school grounds were expanded during the 1940s and 1961, and the school remains in use as a "Design Center" specializing in literature and Spanish language instruction.

The facilities and area at the Locklin Avenue swimming pool, including access stairs from the canyon below and changing rooms were built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938-39. The pool was completed in 1923, well before the advent of the New Deal, and has since been abandoned. According to the Bisbee Daily Review, “Bath house to be remodeled: New change rooms proposed at city swimming pool as WPA project. Bisbee swimming fans may soon have new changing rooms provided for them at the city swimming pool, officials revealed yesterday. Remodeling of the old wooden building at the swimming pool to...

This historic Logan Square Station post office in Chicago, Illinois was constructed with federal Treasury Department funds in 1933. The building is still in service.

CCC crews built this small recreational lake on Mill Creek in Mark Twain National Forest in 1940. It is at least partially spring-fed and tends to be clear. The dam has a simple concrete spillway. In addition to the lake, the project consisted of a trail around the lake, a campground, and picnic ground.

The WPA worked on Lombard St. between Lyon and Broderick.

The hewn-limestone school in Lometa, Texas consists of two wings and a central gymnasium. It was the first school building in Lometa to have indoor plumbing. The Works Projects Administration did most of the work and the Public Works Administration provided partial funding under docket W1950.

Cement bridge with off set railings. Bridge is on 2nd Street (I-20 BL) and spans Lone Wolf Creek. Marker Text: LONE WOLD CREEK BRIDGE REBUILT IN 1936 BY THE TEXAS HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT -------------------- UNITED STATES BUREAU OF PUBLIC ROADS ------------------- STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION HARRY HINES CHAIRMAN D.K. MARTIN MEMBER JOHN WOOD MEMBER GIBB GILCHRIST HIGHWAY ENGINEER WEST TEXAS CONSTR CO CONTRACTORS

In 1938, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) decided to diverge the Long Prairie River to address issues that were both economic and community-driven. Long Prairie and Osakis are two small, rural, farming communities in Minnesota less than 30 minutes from one another. One community, Osakis, was supported through its tourist economy, while its sister community’s lifeblood was its farmers. A lake in and around the community of Osakis, Osakis Lake, and it was suffering to the point it was “nearly useless”, according to the newspapers written at the time (cited and pictured on this page). Lake Osakis was in desperate...

Originally named the Longbow Forest Camp, the Longbow Organization Camp is a group facility constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the Sweet Home Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest (WNF).  Starting during the winter season of 1937-1938, the CCC workers completed the campground during the winter season of 1938-1939. Their work was supervised by the US Forest Service. CCC workers from nearby Camp Cascadia (Co. #2907) improved the ten-acre campground along the banks of the South Santiam. They built six sleeping shelters, a community kitchen with attached dining, an amphitheater that seats seventy-five people, and a water system...

“The Great Indian Council 1833” is a mural painted by Gustaf Dalstrom, who was a Swedish-American artist that attended the Art Institute of Chicago and at one point was the President of the Chicago Society of Arts. Dalstrom painted many murals for the Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture as known as The Treasury Section of Fine Arts. “The Great Indian Council 1833” was originally painted for the Post Office at 840 North Clark Street where it hung from 1938 (year it was finished) until 1983 when the Post Office was converted to a movie theater. The Mural also originally hung...

The Houston Independent School District and the Public Works Administration (PWA) erected the Adele Looscan Elementary School in 1936 under PWA project number TEX-1057R. Looscan is still an active elementary school for the Houston ISD.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed the historic and photogenic public library building in Lordsburg, New Mexico. NRHP: "The Lordsburg-Hidalgo County Library is a single-story adobe building constructed in 1936-1937 as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) cost-sharing program with the Town of Lordsburg and Hidalgo County. The library is situated west of the corner of Third Street and Second Avenue within the town limits of Lordsburg, New Mexico. The library is approximately rectangular in plan, measuring at a maximum 61.0 by 54.3 feet or 3,057 square feet. There have been a minimal number of alterations to the building. With...

This school was constructed in part with funds provided by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works in 1937, and bears the name of an important early town denizen. A well-constructed building, it has since been repurposed and, until recently, served as the Cape Girardeau City Hall and Municipal Court.  

The Los Angeles Center for Advanced Studies was launched in 1977 as the first magnet school in LA and used various facilities such as a temple, an unused building at Hamilton High School, and a closed Catholic School at Pico and Arlington before moving to the current site in 1986. It now occupies the campus of the former Louis Pasteur Middle School, which was built in 1939 with aid from the Public Works Administration (PWA) – sometimes called by its full name, the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, as in this case. It is probable that the Pasteur Middle School was built...

This Mission Revival style building was built under the Roosevelt Administration and served as the main mail distribution for LA until 1994. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Only a part of this structure still functions as a post office, but the front lobby and its WPA murals have been preserved.

A 10 by 12 foot relief map of the Los Padres National Forest was made in 1934 by enrollees of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The map is based on Forest Service and US Geological Survey maps of the area and was intended to be used in support of fighting forest fires. The plaque on the map tells us it was constructed at the CCC Camp at Castella CA near Mt. Shasta. The relief map was first displayed at the California International Exhibition in San Diego in 1935, then installed in the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in 1936...

The federal Public Works Administration (PWA) provided $13,909 grant towards a repair project for Loudon, Tennessee's county courthouse during the Great Depression. The total cost of the project, undertaken in 1936, was $30,909.

Russian-born sculptor Louis Zack created this bust of James Russell Lowell, the school's namesake, in 1940, with funding from the Work Projects Administration Arts Project (WPAAP). Carved from a single block of brown marble, "the bust rests on a black terrazzo base set onto a wooden podium. The black base is engraved on three sides: the left side lists the artist’s name and the date, the front states the name of the person depicted “James Russell Lowell”, and the right side names the Agency commissioning the work “WPA/So. Calif. Art Project” (LBUSD WPA Artwork Collections Assessment Guidelines Survey, p....

The Pontalba Buildings flank Jackson Square in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans.  The Upper Pontalba Building lies on the west side of the square along St. Peter Street, the Lower Pontalba Building on the east side on St. Ann Street.  Both are block-long structures, four stories in height, built of brick and graced with the ironwork typical of buildings in the French Quarter. They were originally built in the 1840s. The two building were the gift of the Baroness de Pontalba, who wished to improve the appearance of Jackson Square – then the center of the city....