Unmarked Sites

According to the Washington Post, $220,500 was allotted by the Public Works Administration (PWA) for an outfall sewer extension in 1933.   According to DC Water, there are 53 sewer outfalls in the District, so the location of the work cannot be known based on this source alone. This work was part of a massive New Deal era program to upgrade the sewers of Washington DC, separate sanitary and storm sewer systems, and install sewage treatment at Blue Plains.   The outfalls referred to here would today be storm sewers not sanitary sewers.

As part of the initial Civil Works Administration (CWA) jobs effort in Dover Foxcroft was the construction of 4 sewer lines on Fairview, Morton, Harrison Avenues and Pearl St. $12,618 was spent by the CWA and 90 men were put to work in the town in December on various public works.

During the hard winter months of 1933-1934, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a work relief program that employed Portlanders on a variety of needed projects. Sewer repair work was one such project category. These men are shown doing sewer repair in the Lair Hill neighborhood at SW First and SW Sheridan on January 30, 1934. The CWA served as a federal relief program from November 8, 1933 through March 31, 1934.  When the CWA began, Oregon anticipated being able to put 21,000 men back to work on small projects involving a large amount of hand labor. The projects were submitted...

During the hard winter months of 1933-1934, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a work relief program that employed Portlanders on a variety of needed projects. Sewer repair work was one such project category. These men are shown doing sewer repair in the Laurelhurst neighborhood at the corner of SE Floral and SE Ankeny Streets on January 26, 1934. The CWA served as a federal relief program from November 8, 1933 through March 31, 1934.  When the CWA began, Oregon anticipated being able to put 21,000 men back to work on small projects involving a large amount of hand labor. The...

"Description: Improve sanitary sewer system in and near Jamestown, Tuolumne County including constructing treatment plant, roads, walls, settling beds, drainage ditches, trestles, and manholes; excavating; installing pipe and appurtenances; backfilling; and performing incidental and appurtenant work. Publicly and privately owned property. Work on private property is to consist of constructing sewer pipe lines and roads for which proper agreements are to be obtained. Sponsor: Jamestown Sanitary District" WPA Proj. No. 165-1-08-348, Proj. Cost $50,346, Application Date May 28, 1941, Average Employed 148, Total Federal and Sponsor funds $68,153 There was only one original New Deal structure at the facility when I visited....

The 1934 town report noted that "Sanitary sewers were constructed with E. R. A. labor the full length of Harbor and Bell Streets, on Union between Harbor and Bell and on Bay View from Harbor to Allyn."

The Bangor Daily News covered some extensive sewer line construction in the northern town of Fort Kent in the initial CWA jobs program of 1933. December 4: "OVER 100 EMPLOYED ON CWA SEWER PROJECT More than a hundred men are now digging ditches for the new sewer project as Fort Kent's share of the federal relief program. Most of the men selected had been receiving direct aid from the town. The sewer lines will run through Pleasant, Elm, Center and Market streets, the Center street line intersecting Main Street near the Fort Kent Drug Co. The number of feet of pipe...

Community notes of April 25, 1935 document that FERA was involved in constructing sewer lines on Thomas and Heald Streets in a project that employed 34 men for several weeks. The Thomas St sewer pipe was 10 inches and the Heald St. pipe is 12 inches.

Lewiston took full advantage of New Deal funds to get much work accomplished during the years of the economic depression. One of these federally funded projects was the upgrade of the sewer system. During the hard winter of 1933/34, "Sewer pipes are now being laid on Castle, Dill, Eustis and Foch St. Sewer pipes on Glenwood St., Boston Ave. and at Barkerville are soon to be laid." 1934 Mayors Report: E. R. A. "Please let me enumerate some of the most important projects completed during this last year under the E. R. A. All proposed projects on sewerage have been accomplished to the...

In 1936, after an earthwork dam that protected local roads from being flooded by Shadow Lake washed out, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) re-built it.

During the summer of 1935, the Oregonian newspaper announced that among Oregon's 67 Civilian Conservation Camps that summer one would be located at Shelton State Park in Wheeler County. The 200 member work crew made improvements in the state park along with other tasks associated with CCC workers, such as reforestation work and fire fighting, and road construction. Shelton Wayside Park is the park's current name. It is located approximately ten miles southeast of Fossil on Highway 19.

Approximately half Lewiston' sidewalks s seems were built by the New Deal. "1934 Mayors Report: E. R. A. Please let me enumerate some of the most important projects completed during this last year under the E. R. A. about 12 miles of permanent sidewalks; thousands of feet of curbing were relayed; nearly 8 miles of temporary sidewalks;" "12 Permanent sidewalks: There were 69,450 feet or approximately 12 miles of permanent sidewalks constructed in the following streets: Lincoln, Cedar, Oxford, River Lower Lisbon, Park, Knox, Bates,Blake, Bartlett, Horton, Howe, Shawmut, Howard,  Bradley, Jefferson, Webster, Orange. Sylvan Ave., Colder, Lafayette, Newman, Campus Ave. Nichols, Wood, Maple, Birch, Walnut,...

"During June, 1934, a project for concrete sidewalk construction was started in Waterville. This project was self-sustaining and cost the ERA nothing except for labor and trucks. From June until the last of October, 6,671 lineal feet of 4'0" and 6'0" sidewalk was built. Of this amount 823 feet of 4'0" walk was constructed on Winter and West Winter Streets, completing both sides from beginning to and making the first street in the city to be so beautified. On Burleigh Street 1,509 lineal feet of 5'0" walk was constructed. This construction of concrete sidewalk was continued at the beginning of the summer...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built sidewalks, gutters, curbs and other streets improvements throughout the city of Martinez.  There were two main projects, one starting in 1938 and the other in 1941, according to WPA project cards in the National Archives.   The total funding was around $375,000, a considerable sum for the WPA, so there must have been a large amount of street work, as well, but this was not marked and cannot be identified.  WPA sidewalk stamps can still be found here and there around the older parts of town. Many have been lost to curb cuts and sidewalk replacements...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed sidewalks all over Prescott AZ, including around Courthouse Plaza.  According to the WPA stamp in the photograph, the sidewalk was part of Project No. 65-2-105 in 1936.   Unfortunately, the entire plaza has been renovated and the stamp shown here has disappeared -- despite the photographer's happiness on seeing "that such things are preserved."

This concrete dam on Little Santa Anita Creek, in the city of Sierra Madre, California, is owned by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. Although the original dam was completed in 1928, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) did work to channelize the creek and construct bridges below the dam. A large concrete dam for flood control in the vicinity of Sierra Madre was constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), circa 1935.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided labor toward repainting and renovations at the Silver Bow County Courthouse in Butte, Montana. In the course of the restoration work, several murals were discovered beneath earlier paint jobs. The WPA was critical to the welfare of unemployed miners in Butte, and this was just one of several projects around the city. The historic plaque in front of the courthouse makes no mention of the WPA work.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) did extensive road improvement around Silver Bow County Montana in 1938 (and probably into 1939). WPA employment was vital to the many jobless miners in Butte area. Montana's Big Timber Pioneer newspaper reported in May 1938:"WPA authorities approved a $428,640 improvement project for Silver Bow county roads, streets and bridges... The project will improve 152 miles of county highways." In September, the same newspaper reported that the WPA had allocated $1,102,751 for such projects during August 1938. An estimated 500 WPA laborers were employed on this project.

The Works Progress Administration ( WPA) built several of the features in the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds: a grandstand, two sides of the Education building, and a barn for all sorts of stock animals.    The Silver Dollar Fairgrounds is home to the Third District Agricultural Association and has a fair every Memorial Day week.  Butte county fairs go back to the mid-19th century, off and on, and came to be sponsored by the Third District Agricultural Association after it was formed in 1935. The fairgrounds hosts other events throughout the year, particularly open car races on the Silver Dollar Speedway.  The Gold Cup...

Silver Falls Park is the largest and one of the finest roadside parks in Texas. Since the 1800s travelers have found Silver Falls a scenic, pleasant place to stop. In 1935 the National Youth Association, part of President Roosevelt’s Work Project Administration, build the park’s stone facilities.

The early development of Silver Falls State Park can be credited to several of the New Deal programs. A significant portion of the land for the park was purchased by the federal Resettlement Administration (RA) c. 1935, and developed for recreational use through the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1935 and 1942. During that period, a distinction was made between Silver Falls Park, which was accessible to the public, and the area designated as the Silver Creek Recreation Development Area (RDA), which was a special federal program designed to allow urban youth...

In 1933, the Washington Post announced the approval of several road surfacing projects funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA): "Among projects approved here are paving of Sixteenth street, Constitution Avenue, Michigan Avenue, Columbia Road, Foxhall Road, Good Hope Road, New Hampshire Avenue, Benning Road and Conduit Road, widening of E Street back of the White House and widening of Thirteenth Street." The report continues: "The Sixteenth street project was the first actually begun under the public works grants in the Tenth Highway District" (Post, 1933). It doesn't say exactly which part of Sixteenth Street was involved, but it was probably...

The mural was painted in 1934 by Raymond Breinin, an artist hired by the Public Works Art Project. Soon after its completion, the mural became the subject of a political controversy and the school board voted to cover it.  The remnants of the mural are located at the Skokie School Learning Center. The original artwork was 40 foot-wide by 10 foot-tall.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built Skyline Boulevard along the crest of the Berkeley-Oakland Hills in 1935-36. It employed around 1500 men daily and cost $131,000.  The work described in photographs in the National Archives as "realignment, cleaning slides, drainage structures and surfacing" amounted to a complete make-over of a dirt road built by a short-lived timber company owned by Oakland developer Frank Havens, 1910-13.  Skyline was meant to link up the parks of the original East Bay Regional Parks system  created in the 1930s: Tilden, Sibley and Redwood (plus Temescal lower in the hills). It began from Tilden Park, but that portion has...

Sligo Creek Elementary School in Silver Spring MD – the former Montgomery Blair High School – was built in 1935 with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). A 1939 report by the PWA provide details: "The building contains 13 classrooms, a special English classroom with a stage, administrative offices, a conference room, laboratories for science and biology, a library, rooms for music and domestic science, and a cafeteria for the students. The school was named for the Postmaster General of President Lincoln's Cabinet. The construction is steel frame with reinforced-concrete floor slabs, exterior walls of red brick trimmed with limestone and wood,...

Sligo Creek Parkway is a landscaped, two-lane roadway in Montgomery County MD that runs parallel to Sligo Creek and the Sligo Creek Trail.  It begins at Maryland Route 650 in Takoma Park, travels through Silver Spring, and ends further north at MD 193.  The Works Progress Administration (WPA) did extensive work on the parkway in 1935-36, including: "building drains along existing concrete roads, ditch digging, laying storm drains, creek cribbing, footbridges, masonry headwalls; clearing, grubbing and seeding park land; building a running track, foot paths, playground equipment, drinking fountains, and shelters."   (Maryland Historical Trust)

In 1936, Work: A Journal of Progress reported that several dozen Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers were assigned the role of assisting archaeologists, anthropologists, biologists, and other scientists in sorting the backlog of contributions to the Smithsonian Institution museum and other supportive roles. This kind of "service work" to museums and libraries was quite common in the New Deal, so we mention it here because the Smithsonian is such a central public institution in the nation's capital. From the story in Work: "BEHIND the scenes at the Smithsonian Institution, where the painstaking work of research and the classification of specimens proceeds constantly,...

In 1936 Work: A Journal of Progress reported that Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief crews had conducted grounds maintenance at the Smithsonian Institution, not specified but likely consisting of planting shrubs, turning soil, and other landscaping work.

A $12,000 PWA grant allowed for the construction of a warehouse at the Sacramento Corporation Yard. It is unknown if the building exists after major reconstruction was done at the facility in 2009.

An elementary school rebuilt by the WPA after the (probably 1933 Long Beach) earthquake.

During the Great Depression the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (F.E.R.A.) funded the labor for the construction of what is now known as the Somerset Residential Care Center, in Madison, Maine. When constructed, the facility went by a different name: the "town farm." Town farms were once the means by which rural towns in New England cared for or warehoused (depending on the local conditions) the elderly, the mentally handicapped, disabled, transients, etc. The community notes from April 11, 1935 notes that "Work started Friday forenoon on the two weeks' ERA project, painting and repairing the buildings at the Madison town farm. There...

Somesville Bridge is a 340 ft long 5 span continuous steel girder bridge that spans the northerly branch of the Saco River between the cities of Saco and Biddeford in York County. This was one of 26 bridges that were badly damaged or destroyed by the 1936 flood. A state highway commission report notes that the reconstruction of these bridges were U.S. Works Program Flood Relief projects and were handled under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Public Roads, U.S. Department of Agriculture. All bridges were placed under construction in 1936 and the Somesville Bridge was completed in 1937 utilizing...

New Deal relief workers made some improvements to state beaches along the Sonoma County coast, all of which are now included in the Sonoma Coast State Park that runs from Bodega  Bay to Jenner, California. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed trails at Salmon Creek Beach, Portuguese Beach, Schoolhouse Beach, Wright's Beach and Goat Rock.  Relief workers also added pit latrines at the first three of those and transplanted of dunes grasses to prevent wind erosion of sand dunes at some of these beaches. At Jenner Beach, CCC Company 572 built a parking lot by the road and a hiking trail down...

In 1941, the Washington Post reported that funds for paving projects in Congress Heights, Barry Farm, Bellevue, and Washington Highlands had been approved as part of a large roads program. The Public Roads Administration, a subdivision of the Federal Works Administration (FWA), was approved to pave the following stretches on and around South Capitol Street SE, across the Anacostia River:  Firth Sterling Avenue and South Capitol Street between Howard Road and Nichols Avenue SE; Overlook Avenue, from South Capitol Street to Fourth and Chesapeake Streets SW; South Capitol Street, from Atlantic Street to the District line. Work was to start...

In 1934, the Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the creation of the South Gate Entrance Station to Yosemite National Park.  This followed enlargement of the park by the addition of the area from Wawona south and was done as part of the Wawona Road reconstruction.  The new entrance station included a parking area, entrance station, comfort station (restroom), residences for park rangers and a garage. Of this work, the restroom and ranger residence are original New Deal structures.   The Historic American Engineer Record (HAER) report on the Wawona Road provides these details:  "In 1934, roads around the South Entrance station were...

This campground offers a variety of opportunities for campers including fishing, hiking, mountain biking, canoeing, boating, and bird watching. Sites sit well above the river. The historic log pavilion was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933 and is available for rent.

South Mountain Park in Phoenix AZ was the site of two Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps from 1933 to 1940, labeled SP-3A and SP-4A.  Around 4,000 CCC enrollees passed through the camps over that time, in Companies 864, 874, and possibly others. The camps appear to have been located on level ground near the entrance to the park, perhaps near the present site of the Environmental Education Center.  It is not clear from historic photographs and their labels if the camps were at a single site or were separate.  Remnants of CCC barracks are said to be still visible (NNDPA 2012). The...

South Mountain Park in Phoenix AZ was developed for public recreation by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from 1933 to 1940.  The best known of the works by the CCC is the large stone shelter at the Dobbins Lookout, which is the popular symbol of the park and famous for its spectacular views of the city of Phoenix.  Dobbins lookout is accessible by car via Summit Road, which has a large parking area with low stone walls (presumably by the CCC, as well). There is a small stone shelter not far west of Dobbins Lookout and a platform lookout, with a low...

South Mountain Park in Phoenix AZ was developed for public recreation by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from 1933 to 1940. Among the works of the CCC were two ramadas, which are large, elaborate picnic areas, with stunning views north over the city of Phoenix. The ramadas consist of polished concrete picnic tables protected from the desert sun by wooden roofs raised on stone or concrete pillars, with large central spaces surrounded by stone walls.  The big ramada is very extensive and reached by stone steps.  Low stone walls line the approach road to the ramadas and the complex includes a path...

South Mountain Park in Phoenix AZ was developed for public recreation by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from 1933 to 1940.  During that time, the CCC enrollees built many, if not most, of the roads and trails in the park – though we cannot be sure exactly which ones.