Madison Sites

"Cherry Lake Farm (also known as Cherry Rural Rehabilitation Project) was a New Deal rural relief program initiated by the FERA and the Resettlement Administration (RA) and implemented by the WPA. The project involved moving 500 needy families from Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville onto a 15,000-acre communal tract. The workers formed the cooperatively-owned Cherry Lake Farms (headquartered in the 1839 former plantation home, the Hinton House) and constructed a school, an auditorium, a coop store, barracks, a lumber yard, and a mill. Families lived in 170 cottages with phones, electricity, and running water?all furnished by jointly-owned utilities."   (www.floridamemory.com) According to the...

The historic post office in Madison, Florida was constructed in 1936 with Treasury Department funds. The building, which houses an example of New Deal artwork, is still in service.

The historic post office in Madison, Florida houses an example of New Deal artwork: "Long Staple Cotton," an oil-on-canvas mural completed by George Snow Hill in 1937. The work was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. This mural, along with several others under the care of USPS, were covered following complaints about its content in Aug. 2020. Greene Publishing reported on the mural's getting covered with black plastic: The painting depicts workers preparing cotton to be bailed and shipped out. The painting pays tribute to the long staple cotton industry that was the economic engine that drove much of...