Matanuska Colony Community Center (Palmer Historic District) – Palmer AK

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What is now the Palmer Alaska Historic District was founded in 1935 as the Matanuska Colony Project. It was one of 100 New Deal resettlement programs and involved major efforts by FERA and the Resettlement Administration. The town site of Palmer expanded rapidly with the relocation of 203 colonists from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin in 1935 under the Relocation project.  Prior to that the area was composed of homesteads primarily. The Palmer Historical Society has a Colony House Museum that is a ‘house’ as it would have been in 1935-1945.  It is an original colony house moved into the historic district.

A registration form of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) describes formal characteristics of the district: “Within the boundaries of the Matanuska Colony Community Center there are twenty-seven buildings, one site, two structures, and one object. They stand in a nine block area in the City of Palmer. Eighteen buildings, two structures, and one site are contributing properties in the historic district. […]

The contributing properties were built between 1935 and 1940 as part of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration’s (FERA) Matanuska Colony rural rehabilitation project. A non-profit organization, the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation (ARRC) incorporated to implement the plan. Centered around a quadrangle, the integrated community center reflects early community and land use planning. The community center buildings originally shared many of the same building elements. One to three stories in height, all buildings were frame construction and most had rectangular floor plans.”

The Matanuska Colony Community Center consists of the following properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places:

  1. Water Tower (AHRS Site No. ANC-747).
  2. Warehouse (AHRS Site No. ANC-711).
  3. Cannery/Creamery (AHRS Site No. ANC-478, later known as Mat-Maid Building).
  4. Alaska Railroad Siding (AHRS Site No. ANC-755).
  5. Chicken Hatchery (AHRS Site No. ANC-480).
  6. Palmer Depot (AHRS Site No. ANC-089).
  7. ARRC Administration Office (AHRS Site No. ANC-690).
  8. Beauty/Barber/Cobbler Shops (AHRS Site No. ANC-479).
  9. Trading Post (AHRS Site No. ANC-477).
  10. Central School (Borough Building, AHRS Site No. ANC-483).
  11. Quadrangle Site (AHRS Site No. ANC-754).
  12. Dormitory (AHRS Site No. ANC-481).
  13. School Superintendent’s House (AHRS Site No. ANC-693).
  14. Manager’s House (AHRS Site No. ANC-692).
  15. Accountant’s House (AHRS Site No. ANC-694).
  16. Staff House #1 (AHRS Site No. ANC-751).
  17. Staff House #2 (AHRS Site No. ANC-695).
  18. Staff House #3 (AHRS Site No. ANC-696).
  19. Staff House #4 (AHRS Site No. ANC-698).
  20. (a & b) United Protestant Church and Parsonage (AHRS Site No. ANC-248).

 

Campbell House – Palmer AK

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This 1935 Colony House was built as part of the New Deal resettlement program that brought colonists from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin to Palmer Alaska in 1935.

The building has recently been restored and accepted to the National Register of Historic Places. It is also the recent Recipient of the 2013 Alaska Association for Historic Preservation Award of Excellence.

City Pool – Winter Garden FL

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The accompanying photo was used on p. 50 of “All Aboard! A Journey Through Historic Winter Garden 1880-1950,” written by The Winter Garden Heritage Foundation.

The photograph portrays the Winter Garden City Pool at 1, Surprise Drive, Winter Garden. This popular facility was one of the WPA projects made possible through the efforts of Mayor George Walker. The pool was originally filled by a natural artesian well. The pool is still in use and is now called Farnsworth Pool.

Tanner Hall – Winter Garden FL

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The accompanying photograph is of a view of the town in the 1930s. Tanner Hall is seen on the center-left side of the picture. The WPA building was initially used as a gymnasium and was later extensively remodeled. It is now a Community Center.

Other buildings that are seen in the photograph are Farnsworth Pool, Little Hall, yacht basins with covered boathouses, the city dock, sea walls and Trailer City, among the public building and lakefront beautification projects funded by the Works Progress Administration and directed by Mayor George Walker in the 1930s.

In his seven-year tenure as mayor, Walker secured more than $250,000 from President Franklin Roosevelt to employ local residents during the Great Depression and build amenities to lure tourists to “the large- mouth bass capital.” Today, Trailer City is still owned and operated by the City of Winter Garden. The 127 permanent residents and 66 seasonal residents continue to enjoy the attractively maintained and well-equipped 70-year-old park.

A New Deal for Europe

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After months of negotiations, EU finance ministers have endorsed a New Deal for Europe.

A New Deal for Europe
After months of negotiations, EU finance ministers have endorsed a New Deal for Europe.

After months of negotiations, Germany and France have just announced a major initiative to address Europe’s soaring youth unemployment. They’ve named the effort the “New Deal for Europe,” after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression recovery plan.

Under the plan, billions in loans from the European Investment Bank would be used for education, on-the-job training, and job placement. Companies that create jobs would qualify for loans and tax credits.

The New Deal for Europe comes amid fears of a lost generation as youth unemployment has topped 50 percent in several countries across Europe. In Spain and Greece, almost two out of three young people are unemployed.  A report by the International Labor Organization crisis refers to them as a “Generation at Risk.”

As in the U.S., a debate has raged in the EU over imposing tough austerity measures versus stimulus programs that would revive struggling economies but add to public deficits.

During the Great Depression unemployed youth had an active and compassionate advocate in the White House. “I live in real terror when I think we may be losing a generation,” Eleanor Roosevelt said in 1934. “We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they are necessary.” To that end, the New Deal created programs such as the CCC and National Youth Administration. Europe, as well as the U.S., would do well to study the success of those programs lest they, too, have a lost generation and the calamitous consequences of that loss.

Gray Brechin contributed to this article.

Susan Ives is communications director for the Living New Deal and editor of the Living New Deal newsletter.