Wichita Sites

Ackerman Island was an island in the middle of the Arkansas River. In the early 1900s the land had been developed as an amusement park, but by the late 1920s it had fallen into disuse. Works Progress Administration workers widened the Arkansas River by removing the island and sculpting it in as part of the riverbank. According to visitwhichita.com, "The baseball field survived for a while after the closing of the amusement park. By the 1930s, flooding had become a problem along the river, causing the Works Progress Administration to recommend getting rid of the sandbar to widen the river. As...

"Oil-on-canvas murals, painted in 1935-1936, are located on the east and west walls of the lobby. Artists J. Ward Lockwood and Richard Haines received the commissions through a post office mural project awarded by the U.S. Treasury Department's Painting and Sculpture Section. "Pioneers in Kansas," the mural by Lockwood (a Kansas native), is a collage of images associated with role and evolution of the Postal Service during the settlement of the western United States. A stagecoach laden with mail and passengers marks the center of the canvas, with the other images radiating around it. A Pony Express rider and a Native...

John Marshall School was completed in 1939 and dedicated January 9, 1940. The school was named in honor of John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The builder was Armagost and Son Construction Company in cooperation with the Public Works Administration. There were nine classrooms, an auditorium, gymnasium, cafeteria, art room, music room, shop and two home economics rooms. A small library was located on the first floor with a part-time librarian provided by the City Library. C.E. Strange was the first principal. The staff included 15 teachers, a part-time librarian, a visiting teacher who spent part...

"The Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita, Kansas occupies a beautiful WPA (Works Progress Administration) building which was the Wichita Municipal Airport terminal from 1935 to 1951."

Lawrence-Dumont Stadium, originally Lawrence Stadium, was a baseball stadium built by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) in 1934. Home to minor league baseball and National Baseball Congress tournament for many years. It was demolished in 2018 to make room for Riverfront Park.

Wichita Municipal Beach Swimming Pool was built in 1938 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. The pool replaced an earlier municipal pool built in 1923. The new pool cost $50,000 to construct. At 240 feet long and 125 feet wide, the pool sloped from a depth of two to nine feet. It also contained 38 underwater flood lights of 1000 watts each. In addition to the main deck, there were two smaller pools nearby designed for children. The Municipal Beach Swimming Pool was the crown jewel of the Wichita parks and recreation system. It opened to a deluge of residents during...

This Sedgwick county public building was partially constructed by the WPA in 1941: "The west portion was constructed by the WPA, a Federal New Deal work relief program, to house the county's engineering department. The east portion, a materials barns, was constructed prior to 1935. The Art Deco WPA addition underwent a renovation in 2003. ...A one-story brick building with barrel vaulted roof and parapet ends dates from at least 1935. In 1941, a two story building housing the engineering department for the county was constructed by the WPA at a cost of $42,000. The WPA portion utilized a simplified Moderne style,...

Now officially Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, what was originally Wichita Municipal Airport was improved and developed by the W.P.A. during the 1930s. Improvement work included paving the runways.

Originally called the Auditorium and Commons Building, this 553-seat auditorium was built in 1938 with Public Works Administration funding. It's named for George Wilner, the first head of Wichita State's speech and theater department. It is still in use.