• City Cemetery Improvements - Cottonwood AZ
    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...
  • Cottonwood Community Club House - Cottonwood AZ
    The Cottonwood Community Club House – also known as the Community Center or Civic Center – was built in 1939 with the help of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).  The WPA hired the relief workers to do the labor, many of whom came from the local area, while funds for materials did not come from city government, as was usual, but through volunteer subscriptions by local citizens. The local effort was led by the women's Cottonwood Community Civic Club, for which the club house was intended (on land donated to them three years earlier). The building is eye-catching, with walls of large, round...
  • Creosote Wash Bridge - Cottonwood AZ
    The Civil Works Administration (CWA) built the curving bridge over the Creosote Wash on North Main Street in Cottonwood AZ in the winter of 1933-34. The bridge is built of reinforced concrete with river stone cladding. The upstream side features a handsome arch, while the downstream side reveals the underlying concrete substructure. Creosote Wash is an episodic creek that is dry much of the year.  It used to be called Blowout Wash (and is still marked as such on some online maps).
  • Del Monte Wash Bridge - Cottonwood AZ
    The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built a short bridge on North Main Street across Del Monte Wash in Cottonwood AZ.   The bridge is concrete dressed with the same river stone from the Verde River as the nearby Cottonwood Community Club building and was almost certainly built at the same time, 1938-39.  It is mentioned on the historical plaque in front of the Community Club.
  • Sanitary Privies/Outhouses (demolished) - Cottonwood AZ
    From 1933 to 1938, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) – in short, the work relief agencies of the New Deal – built over a thousand “sanitary privies”, or outhouses, around Arizona under the Community Sanitation Program directed by the Arizona Board of Health.  The program canvassed private property owners to see if they needed new privies and the government provided the labor if the owner paid for the materials. Over one hundred such outhouses were built in the Verde Valley of Yavapai County.  In all likelihood, every last one has disappeared...