Petaluma Sites

This may have been the Waugh School, which benefited from several WPA projects. The WPA installed a new foundation, strengthened and reinforced the framing of the building, added a new stucco exterior, and reroofed and repainted it.

From 1936 to 1938, the WPA graded 1,292 feet of city streets, painted 7 city shcool, and built two small storm sewers and one large storm sewer in Thompson Creek. Of the WPA, the mayor of Petaluma said in 1938, "In our opinion, the Works Progress Administration has accomplished a great deal in this community and at the same time has provided a livelihood for many men and their families. We believe it is far better to have the unemployed at work accomplishing some good for the cities, counties, and states, than to furnish them with a dole that would reduce...

'The site of this building is 100 by 150 feet and is on the corner of two streets. The building is approximately 80 by 88 feet and is one and part two stories in height. The foundations are concrete and the superstructure is frame with a stucco surface. The first floor houses seven pieces of fire apparatus, contains a recreation room, office, kitchen, storage room, toilet facilities, and alarm and battery rooms. Dormitories for the firemen, quarters for the fire chief, toilet and locker facilities are on the second floor. The building was completed in 1938 at a construction cost of $39,403...

This large storm sewer is an arch-shaped, reinforced concrete construction 14 feet in diameter, in the bed of Thompson Creek, and runs through residential and business districts in the southern part of Petaluma. It was constructed by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. The current state of the creek and storm drain is not certain. However, here are field observations from Oct. 2014: "Providing drainage along an unnamed waterway (assumed Thompson Creek) is a reinforced concrete culvert with a single corrugated metal barrel and sloping wingwalls, arranged at a skew underneath I Street. The 5¼" concrete formwork impressions...

This Hopper Street plant was built in 1937 and used until 2009 when the city's new Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility came online. The facility was New Deal-sponsored, though which agency sponsored it is presently unknown to Living New Deal.

WPA workers rebuilt the Waugh School in Petaluma in the 1930s. " was used as a school until 17 years ago, when it was sold to a private individual who is restoring it, said Scott Mahoney, the Waugh district superintendent. 'It's cool to see the plaque on the front...it still says Waugh School as you drive up to it,' Mahoney said."