Taft Sites

'The elementary classes of the Conley School District of Taft, California, occupied a two-story brick building which was declared unsafe because of earthquake and fire hazard... The remodeling program called for removal of the second floor, which was an auditorium, strengthening of brick walls and modernizing the remaining one-story structure so that its architecture would be consistent with a new one-story auditorium and class room building to be erected on adjoining space.' - 'The Architect and Engineer,' July 1937, pp. 20 - 21

Taft Union High School's main building was constructed with federal help under the New Deal.  It is an elegant Art Moderne (Art Deco) facility with lovely decorative elements, particularly the colored bas-reliefs (probably terra cotta). The original Taft Union HS had been built in 1917 with local funds, but the state declared it unsafe in 1934 – most likely because of the great Long Beach earthquake in 1933.  It was not torn down entirely, but reconstructed and expanded. The federal government offered a grant of $51,000 in 1935 – almost surely from the Public Works Administration (PWA).   The county passed a...

The Fort was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Kern County in 1938-40. This unusual New Deal site is a replica of the pre-Gold Rush Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, designed by W. Francis Parsons. It was constructed of native adobe mud bricks made on site and took 83 relief workers 18 months to build.    The Fort covers nearly three acres and measures 360 feet by 200 feet, over 1,000 feet around the outside walls. The walls are 14 feet high. There are two interior courtyards with shade trees and many small offices arranged along the side walkways, which are roofed...

"More than 4000 artifacts and hundreds of Indian burials were excavated at the site of the Yokut Indian village near Taft, California in 1933-34. Dr. William Duncan Strong, of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), headed the Tulamniu C.W.A. Project SLF-73 with Winslow Walker, also of the BAE, as assistant director. The excavations were one of a number of archaeological projects organized and financed by the Civil Works Administration as a means of reducing unemployment. Artifacts and skeletal materials were shipped to the United States National Museum for study after completion of the field work. This collection of material was...