Tekamah Sites

This project, sponsored by the PWA, was intended to provide work and to improve the sanitary condition of farms homes in terms of toilet facilities. Men were put to work throughout county building “bungalows” which were later moved onto farms, where the owners or renters had applied for them. The only cost to the farmer was for materials for the privies.

As early as July 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Tekamah Fire Association investigated the possibility of constructing an auditorium in Tekamah that would also house the town’s fire-fighting apparatus. An application was submitted to the WPA requesting the erection of a $25,000 building, requiring a local outlay of only $6,000. The project was approved by the WPA within the next calendar year, and plans began to proceed. The community was “liberal with praise for the firemen who sponsoring the long-needed improvement.” By the end of October 1936, the foundation was being excavated by unskilled WPA labor. Plans...

The Nebraska Department of Roads and Irrigation’s 1933-34 Biennial Report includes two photographs of the old Tekamah City Bridge, a tired looking Pratt half-hip pony truss, and two views of the attractive new concrete structure that replaced it. The report singles out the Tekamah Bridge and a Dodge County underpass, describing them as “monolithic concrete structures of solid concrete without joints from the bottom of one footing, up and over the span, and down to the bottom of the other footing.” It continues that “the slab or deck takes the form of a very flat arch with a comparatively thin...