Survival: Extant

Edison Elementary School was reconstructed with New Deal funding following the devastating 1933 Long Beach Earthquake. Designed by Earle R. Bobbe in WPA/PWA Moderne style, Buildings A and B were completed in 1935. A relief panel, likely executed by a WPA artist, is located over the entrance to the school. “On August 29, 1933, Long Beach citizens approved a $4,930,000 bond measure for the rebuilding of schools. Applications for approximately thirty-five schools were filed with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Public Works Administration (PWA); federal grants up to thirty percent of labor and material costs were obtained. To minimize costs,...

Carlos Dyer, an alumnus of Woodrow Wilson High School, painted this WPA mural "Democratic Education" upon the asbestos fire curtain in the school's auditorium (also a WPA project) in 1940. At 22 x 44 feet, the mural depicts a multiracial group of students engaged in academic and extracurricular activities—including art, music, and sport—against a beach backdrop. In a nod to the city's aerospace industry, a plane flies overhead. "At its present state it is raised so that only the bottom few inches are exposed revealing the words 'Let us seek here truth in the name of liberty and peace, justice...

This tempera and oil on canvas mural "Incidents in California History" by Suzanne Scheuer was painted in 1936-37 with funding from the Treasury Relief Art Project. Located in the Berkeley Main Post Office. This mural depicts the earliest inhabitants of Berkeley. Scheuer was also one of the artists contributing to San Francisco's Coit Tower mural.

In 1935, the WPA demolished Sebastopol’s original wood-frame city hall and replaced it with a reinforced concrete building containing both municipal offices and a fire station. The Santa Rosa architectural firm, William F. Herbert and Clarence A. Caulkins designed the building in the Streamline Moderne, a style they also applied to the 1936 New Deal-financed Park Side School, located a few blocks to the west. Seeking more space, the fire department moved to McKinley Street in the 1960s. The core of the structure built by the WPA lies behind a 1974 renovation that created a redwood and brick pergola across...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped with the construction of the Healdsburg Elementary School in 1935.  WPA workers improved the playgrounds and finished the interior of the school auditorium.   The style of the building is Mission Revival, which was very popular in California in the 1920s and 1930s. There is a plaque put up when the school was reconstructed in the 1980s, but it does not mention the federal aid of the 1930s. This building is still in use.

In 1936, artist James Redmond painted a mural, "Early California," for the post office in Compton, CA. Funded by the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP), the mural depicts the mythic history of early California and wraps around all four walls of the lobby. "One of the most beautiful sets of mural panels executed under government sponsorship during the depression is James Redmond's panels for the Compton Post Office. Unfortunately, because of their location, they are also one of the least visited sites, which is a pity since they are so captivating in person. In his letter to TRAP administrators describing...

In 1940, the Work Projects Administration (WPA) built the Urho Saari Swim Stadium in El Segundo, CA. It was named after the world famous swimming and water polo coach. Today, the 25-yard pool—known as "the Plunge"—is administered by the El Segundo Recreation and Parks Department. It closed for extensive renovations in 2021 and is expected to re-open in 2025. There are two bas-reliefs at the entrance to the stadium, of a male and female swimmer; it is unknown whether they are New Deal art projects.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped develop the 67 acres of Tayman in Healdsburg CA and the municipal golf course in the park. We cannot be sure of what parts of the golf course were done by the WPA.  Tne rock walls around the entry gate, clubhouse and parking lot look typical of WPA relief workers' handiwork.

These projects involved street improvements, curb, gutter, and sidewalk construction. They resulted in 8,875 ft of streets, 20,122 ft of curbs and gutters, and 15,792 sq ft of sidewalks. The only streets actually identified in the WPA records are Mendocino Ave from College Ave to the north city limit, and also Fourth St from E. St to the east city limit. The photo here shows that a short section of WPA sidewalk also survives on the south side of Spencer Avenue, just east of its intersection with Monroe Street. It is a standard 4’ residential walk made of parallel 24” x...

From 1933 to 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers developed Castle Crags State Park for public use.  CCC enrollees from a camp at Castella built "the park’s roads, trails, infrastructure and buildings in the 'park rustic' style of native wood and stone." (State Parks brochure).  Evidently, some of the CCC workers at Castle Crags were African American (see photo below). The state purchased the land in 1933 from a bankrupt private resort with a mineral springs, "Castle Rock Spring", which had fallen into disrepair.  The CCC workers built a trail down to the river, a new suspension bridge to replace an old, unsafe bridge for...