Unmarked Sites

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp on Mount Tamalpais in October 1933 and CCC enrollees did extensive work around Mount Tamalpais in Marin County CA, north of the Golden Gate.  They carried out improvements in Muir Woods National Monument on the south flank of the mountain, Mt. Tamalpais State Park which encircles the summit and Marin Water District on the north side of the mountain.  The National Park Service says this about the camp: "October 1933: Often called the "busiest month" in the history of Muir Woods, this month saw the arrival of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or the CCC,...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built the CCC Camp S-82, Company 1139, in Townsend, MA, starting on August 1st, 1935. Camp S-82 was located near an old granite quarry off Old Turnpike Road and the Boston and Maine Railroad tracks, currently still in place. According to Shary Page Berg (1999), "Much of the area that became Townsend State Forest was burned in a 1927 forest fire and subsequently logged, leaving the land in poor condition when acquired by the state in 1934. Camp S-82 (Company 1139) was established in fall 1935 and closed in 1940. Projects at Townsend included the construction of...

Members of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) #1258 arrived at CCC Camp Saddle Mountain near Seaside and Cannon Beach OR in the summer of 1935. The majority of the Company's enrollees were from New York. Although the CCC workers occupied tents upon their arrival, they began construction of bunkhouses, recreational halls, officers' quarters and other camp buildings. With the camp's completion, the encampment grew to its full strength of 200 men. Located near what was then the Nehalem Highway (now US Hwy 26), the camp's site was rented by the state to the federal government. Improvement of that land for Oregon State Park...

The Civilian Conservation Corps builtCamp Cabell in the vicinity of Culloden between 1939 and 1941. The 1940 Enumeration District Map shows the camp location.

Soon after the establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in March 1933, CCC Camp Skinner Butte was established in Eugene, Oregon to serve as the headquarters of CCC camps in what was then the Eugene District. Within a year, regional administrators reconfigured the districts and closed Camp Skinner Butte. During its year of operation, Camp Skinner (as it was dubbed) served as the headquarters for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the National Youth Administration (NYA) as well. The Camp occupied the former car camping and picnic area in Eugene's Skinner Butte Park. Although the City of Eugene established a...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established Camp SP-10 in Strawberry Canyon in the hills behind the main campus of the University of California, Berkeley.   Camp SP-10 was home to CCC Company 751 from October 5, 1933 to May 31, 1934. H.C. Merrick was the Commanding Officer. This was an integrated CCC camp, based on photographs of the enrollees. It is believed that the camp was at current location of the parking lot across from the university botanical garden.

CCC Camp Warrenton housed companies of Civilian Conservation Company (CCC) enrollees with a special mission. Although called upon occasionally to fight fires, their primary charge was stabilizing beaches along Clatsop County's coastline. As reported by the Daily Astorian, the Columbia River south jetty had "played havoc on the beaches as far south as Gearhart" since its completion in 1913. Planting Holland Dune Grass along with wooden fences was, at the time, an experiment to halt beach erosion. One report suggests the commitment to this soil conservation project began with the beginning of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933. By June 1936,...

Camp Wawona, at the south end of Yosemite National Park, was one of two hubs for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the park during the New Deal era, 1933-42 (the other hub was at Camp Cascades in Yosemite Valley).  The Wawona area had only been added to the park in 1932 and there was much work to be done to improve that part of the park. The first two camps at Wawona, YNP #1 and 2, were established in May 1933 and were the first CCC camps in the West. These early camps were located at the far end of...

Camp Zigzag, near Zigzag OR in Clackamas County, was the chief Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in the Mount Hood National Forest, operating from 1933 to 1942 when the CCC was terminated.  Several of the CCC buildings are still in place and in use at the site, which is now one of four US Forest Service district Ranger Stations in the Mt. Hood NF. Some of the buildings at Camp Zigzag predate the CCC, but most were built by CCC workers and are still standing and in use: the Ranger's Office, Carpenter Shop, Bunkhouse Residence, Ranger's Residence, Gas House, Fire Warehouse,...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was very active in the Coronado National Forest during the 1930s. Coronado National Forest is discontinuous across southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico because the forested areas occur only on isolated mountain ranges called "Sky Islands" – a type of landscape similar to the Basin and Range in Nevada. Segments of the national forest are found in five counties: Cochise, Graham, Santa Cruz, Pima, and Pinal Counties in Arizona, and Hidalgo County in New Mexico. There were five CCC camps in  Coronado National Forest south-central Arizona: F-42 Tanque Verde in the Rincon Mountains; SP-11, Box Canyon...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was active in Rocky Mountain National Park during the whole of its lifetime, 1933 to 1942.  There were at least six camps in the park, three of which were permanent and three seasonal. The camps were labeled NP-1, 3, 4, 7, 11 and 12. The first camp was NP-1 at Little Horseshoe Park in the northeast part of the park.  The second camp was NP-3 located about 12 miles north of Grand Lake at Phantom Valley, a tent camp that only lasted 1933-34. Camp NP-4 built in 1934 in Hollowell Park was the first permanent camp with...

Currently the administrative center for the Oregon Department of Forestry, this site was first developed in 1936 as the maintenance camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which coordinated its activities with the State Forester's Office. From the first Civilian Conservation Corps camps in 1933 to their closure at the beginning of World War II, Oregon was second only to California in the number of camps west of the Mississippi.  Various state agencies supervised CCC work based on camp location and work program. The State Forester held jurisdiction over camps located in state forests or on private land. The state agency’s newsletter...

The Cedar Avenue Complex was constructed in 1938 with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). It began life as a county civic center in Lancaster CA, forty years before that city was incorporated (1977).   It included a library, memorial hall, courthouse and sheriff's office, as well as an older jail from the 1920s.  The simple Art Moderne (Art Deco) design was by Los Angeles County architect Edward C. M. Brett.   The Cedar Avenue Complex was successfully nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1990s. The entire complex was renovated by the city in 2014 and...

Th Public Works Administration funded the construction of the Cedar County Courthouse in Stockton, in 1938. According to information published by the University of Missouri Extension, "Cedar County Courthouse is the third for the county in the first of this particular site. The courthouse was constructed beginning in 1938 using the matching funds grant from the Public Works Administration. The courthouse was designed by James D Marshall and M Dwight Brown, an engineer and architect for Kansas City. The architects recommended a monolithic cement building as it would be fireproof. W. F. Edgell and Son from Leavenworth Kansas were contracted to...

The following article was found in the January 13, 1938 issue of The Enderlin Independent. ************ WPA PROJECT TO LAY WATER MAIN TO CEMETERY ------------ Project Calls For 1856 Feet of Pipe; Work To Start Soon ------------- The city council has received notice that their request for a citywide WPA project which includes laying water main to the cemetery has been accepted and this week is advertising for bids on the necessary material. The project calls for the laying of 1856 feet of pipe. Of this material, the government will pay for 900 feet of the two inch cast iron pipe. The main will be connected at the...

The New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed sidewalks along Center Street in Provo in 1939.

A 1200-seat auditorium in the Public Works Administration (PWA) Moderne style built primarily as an addition to the facilities of Central Junior High School, but also served the Nampa community for many years as a venue for concerts, sporting events, and other large public gatherings. According to the Idaho Statesman, "The structure was built as a PWA project at a cost of $88,725.88. It is at the corner of Fourteenth avenue and Sixth street south. All intermural sports for the entire system will be played in the new building. Opera seats arranged on three sides of the hard maple center floor...

This two story brick high school building was constructed with funding from the PWA in 1936. It was designed by architects Knecht, McCarty, and Thebaud, Inc. of Grand Rapids, and Ralph L. Bauer, Architect of Traverse City. It now houses Central Grade School.

Central High School was built in 1931. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) added a "school room equipment." The WPA cost was $3,085.66. The WPA also did work on the football field and grounds improvements. The WPA cost was $4,750.76.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) carried out maintenance work on the Old Central Public Library in 1935, as well as helping with clerical tasks. That library building had been funded by Andrew Carnegie in 1906.  It was replaced in 1960 and then replaced again in 2004 by the current asymetrical, cantilevered structure with its striking diagonal metal and glass grid, designed by Rem Koolhaas.

Federal Arts Project (FAP) artist Charles Kassler painted a 50-foot fresco, "Stampeding Buffalo" or "Bison Hunt" (1934), on the east wall of the Children's Court at the Los Angeles Central Library. Damaged by rain runoff over the years, the fresco was painted over in 1963. Kassler's extant FAP works around Los Angeles include a fresco, “Pastoral California” (1934), at Fullerton Union High School, and eight lunette frescoes (1936) at the former Beverly Hills Post Office (the current Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts).

According to Town Reports, works was performed at the CMS by the New Deal. 1933 The following is a list of the various projects which have been carried on during the past three months through the use of C.W.A. Funds. No.1 Rebuilding of 2,500 feet of road from State Highway to Central Maine Sanatorium; work includes rock base with gravel top, also culverts and guard rail fence. No. 13 Excavating under the cellars of three buildings at Central Maine Sanatorium. 1934 Report of Relief Work During the past year, through the use of C.W.A. And E.R.A. Funds, the following projects have been carried on: 9. Excavating under three...

The Central Park Zoo was built over the course of eight months in 1934 by workers employed by the Civil Works Administration and, after that program’s demise, by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. It succeeded the old Central Park Menagerie, a once popular attraction that by the early 1930s was so severely dilapidated that Parks Department officials feared its lions and tigers would break out of the rotted wood structures that housed them. Newly-appointed Parks Commissioner Robert Moses set about replacing the menagerie, not with a full-sized zoo, but with what he called a “picture-book zoo”—a smaller-scale facility meant as...

Though Central Park was created in the 19th century by Olmsted and Vaux, the New Deal help the Parks Department carry out massive improvements to the park from 1934 to 1938.  Work relief funds and labor were used to create 15 new baseball fields in the old North Meadow, where ball playing had long gone on informally.       

In 1936, young people employed by the National Youth Administration provided the labor for construction of an amphitheater on the Reed College campus in southeast Portland. The private college supplied the materials and land with the understanding that the theater would be used by civic organizations as well as for college functions. Created in 1935, the National Youth Administration (NYA) provided part-time employment for young people (16-25) who either needed financial assistance in order to stay in school or were out-of-school, unemployed and in need. During its first four years, the NYA was managed as a program within the Works Progress...

Anthony Chabot Elementary School was originally built as the Claremont Annex School in 1927, but it was renamed in 1930 for Anthony Chabot, an early settler in Oakland who built the first city water works by damming nearby Temescal Creek. The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded a new addition to the school in 1935 and it was built in 1936 and completed in 1937.  It was called the Assembly building at the time, but now serves as the library and is known as the Annex.  It stands on the east side of the original school; both face north. We have not found...

The July 18 1938 Bangor Daily News reports on roadwork in this sparsely populated town near the Canadian border. "The towns of Dennysville and Pembroke have no WPA projects, although a number of WPA workers from these towns are employed on the Moosehorn game reserve in the Baring area. Road construction is carried on along the road from Baring to Charlotte. This, in unimproved sections, is very narrow, with hardly sufficient width for the passage of two automobiles. When completed, a "through" road of splendid construction will prove a short-cut to Calais from residents of Charlotte and Pemmbroke as well...

The Cherry Lake community was a Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) project to build a community for resettlement of families from the urban areas in Florida. FERA bought 15000 acres on which it planned to build farms, housing, and an industrial plant, withe the goal of creating a self sufficient farming community. Started with temporary housing then post office, community center, sawmill, family homes, etc.

Works Project Administration (WPA) project No. 7214, sponsored by the city of Glendale. "This project provides for the construction of a reinforced concrete distributing reservoir of 5,000,000 gallon capacity with connecting pipe lines, and a roadway for maintenance and service. It will replace a series of wooden tanks, now serving this isolated district, which are not at the proper elevation to tie in with the rest of the reservoir system. This project also provides for the connecting of the new unit with the Park Manor reservoir, which will bring another isolated territory into the system. The availability of interconnected reservoirs will...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) worked on the Chico airport in 1934 and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) improved and finished the work in 1935. The specifics of what they did are only partially known to the Living New Deal. WPA job cards at the Fresno Public Library describe some of the work completed by the WPA: "WPA Project No. 65-3-1920, Application date 9-25-35, $12,365 'Airport Improvements.' Presidential Letter #866 - 10-24-35 - Rescinded $12,365 Project Rescinded. O.P. 115-03-4508 Takes the place of the above project - See application folder for accepted G.A.O. Description" "WPA Project No. 65-3-1920, Application Date 11/5/35, $12,365, 'Continuation of...

Construction of the Childress High School Gymnasium building was enabled by Public Works Administration (PWA) funds in 1939. The building is a two-story rectangular plan, front-gabled Italian Renaissance style building with two flat-roofed wings. Additional architectural details can be found at the NRHP reference below.

Cienega Elementary School, which opened in 1917, was rebuilt with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) between 1934 and 1935. In January 1934, the PWA allocated $9,380,000 to the Los Angeles Unified School District for the rehabilitation of schools damaged in the severe 1933 Long Beach earthquake.  One hundred and thirty schools would benefit from the system-wide loan and grant, with 2,500 men to be employed in rehabilitation work over 21 months. Upon receiving news of the PWA allocation, Board of Education member Arthur Eckman told the Los Angeles Times, “I am sure that every member of the board agrees with me...

The Romanesque Revival style Citrus Elementary School was built in 1936 in a residential area north of downtown Chico. It was financed through a bond issue and a Public Works Administration grant which provided 45% of the total cost.  The building remains in good condition with little modification, but the school yard is now gated and the windows shaded, no doubt out of security concerns. There is a name plate with the date of construction, but nothing indicating the role of the New Deal. "This 1936 project is an L-shaped stuccoed school building. It is a single story structure with a continuous...

The Natchez City Auditorium was Mississippi project # 1350 from the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. The 995-seat arena is headed by a large stage, and is designed in a squared-corner horseshoe, with seats on both sides and the back. The building features "a broad, hexastyle pedimented Doric portico" (Mississippi Department of Archives & History). Community events as well as national tours are scheduled in the auditorium on a regular basis. It underwent renovation in 1999-2000.

This classic 1894 brick structure received some attention as part of a large number of New Deal projects being undertaken in the city of Biddeford, Maine. As part of the $120,000.00 Federal expenditures in the town in 1935, the mayor Arthur J. Remillard reported that "A public building project was in operation throughout the year employing 10 men. Under this project many necessary repairs were made to the City Building and to several school- houses. The roof of the City Building was leaking so that rain was ruining all the inside of the building. The edge of the roof was raised...

The mayors address in the 1933 town report mentions a Civil Works Administration project for repairs at the 1892 baroque revival style building. "City building is now being rewired, painted and varnished as you may see." This project was part of $239,193.23 spent in the city for unemployment relief. The mayor's address in the 1934 town report mentions an E.R.A. project for modernizing the wiring in City Building.

From its origins in the 19th century, the cemetery in Cottonwood AZ was privately owned and run. A local committee was formed in 1937-38 to maintain the cemetery and it immediately sought federal aid from the New Deal.  Help came from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which fenced the entire site. We have no found a definite date for when the work was done. Notably, the WPA relief workers built a 4-5' stone wall along the front of the property and two entrance gates. The main entrance is notable for its a metal arch reading "Cottonwood Cemetery".   The wall, gates and...

The present Moab City Center, effectively the City Hall, was originally built to house the Moab elementary school and the Grand County high school.  It was built with a federal grant and cost $135,000.  It was first proposed in May 1933, according to local newspaper reports, and dedicated in December 1934. Firmage (1996, p. 275) claims that it was built with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds, but this appears to be a classic confusion between the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the WPA – which did not yet exist in 1933-34. PWA funded the neighboring Carbon County Courthouse, so it is likely that...

A 1939 Report on WPA works in Southern California describes WPA involvement in the construction of this large city garage, which is still standing today. WPA Work Project No. 996 employed an average of 79 men for 7 months. "Sponsored by the City of Glendale, provided for the completion of a garage building started under the S.E.R.A. (State Emergency Relief Administration) This building, which is located on Isabel Street adjacent to the City Hall, is for the purpose of centrally storing and maintaining city owned trucks, passenger cars and other equipment. The structure is ell-shaped, having a one story portion containing...

Montana's Big Timber Pioneer newspaper reported: "Work on PWA projects in Polson is well under way. Construction of a new jail and fire house has started, adjacent to the new city hall which was constructed with a grant of federal funds last year. C. J. Loveland who was superintendent for the construction of the new city hall is again in charge."