New Mexico Sites

The municipal airport southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico, now known as Cavern City Air Terminal, was constructed during the Depression era with Work Projects Administration (WPA) funds and labor. The WPA conducted two large-scale projects at the site: "Construct municipal airport," Project No. 165‐1‐85‐188, a $229,025 project sponsored by the City of Carlsbad. "Develop and improve municipal airport", Project No. 165‐1‐85‐113, a $48,232 project sponsored by the War Department.

This large, adobe-built gymnasium is attached to the rear of a 1920s, four-room brick school house in the nearly non-existent community of Cedarvale, New Mexico. The gym was erected by the WPA between 1935-36, under WPA Official Project #s 65-85-402 and 165-85-2081. Both buildings are on private property.

From the Albuquerque Journal, April 23, 1935: "A new fire lookout tower, rearing it's steel frame more than 45 feet above the summit of Cedro Peak in the Scandia mountains, and a new automobile road leading to it are rapidly nearing completion, according to Cibola National Forest officials. Visibility will be greatly increased by replacing the antiquated 30 foot pole tower of years past, and within 30 days another important link will be welded into the chain of fire prevention agencies of the Forest Service. CCC boys from Camp Manzano, under Forest Service supervision are pushing construction in preparation for the fire season...

Cemetery improvements were undertaken as a New Deal project, most likely by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The W.P.A. constructed sidewalks in Tucumcari, including on East Center Street in front of the municipally owned owned housing the the city hall and municipal court buildings. There are two imprint stamps, coordinates: 35.178135, -103.724251 35.178137, -103.723836

The W.P.A. constructed a wall at the front of the then-new City Hall building (and the adjacent site of what became the present city hall) in Tucumcari, on East Center Street.

Constructed by the WPA in 1938-39, the Melrose City Hall is made of locally quarried sandstone. The ashlar stone is laid in regular courses with triangular and random pieces inserted into the pattern to add interest. The corners of the building are finished with stone quoins. The windows are crowned with voissoirs and a keystone. Low stone walls define the south and west sides of the property. The community applied for the project on July 11, 1938, requesting $20,318.18. It was built as a combination city hall and jail. The WPA financed similar consolidated town hall plans throughout New Mexico, including...

"WPA workers constructed this solid, no-nonsense building with Art Deco cement panels on the faade. As one of the many plaques in-side the structure emphatically states, it was Built and paid for in 1938-39. From 1939 to 1962 the Roswell Police Department operated from here, along with other City officials. Today it only houses City government offices, including that of the Mayorthe ceremonial head of the Cityand the City Manager who actually runs things. In recognition of his achievements and pioneering spirit the City dedicated this building to James W. Stockard (1859-1924), mayor of Roswell from 1906 to 1908, who...

Roy, New Mexico's historic City Hall was constructed by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1936. The building, which is located on the east side of Chicosa St. between 4th and 5th streets, is still in use today.

Originally built as a high school during the New Deal. It now functions as the town's City Hall, as well as holding the Police and Fire Departments.

The former combination city hall and library in Artesia, New Mexico was constructed with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds in 1939. The PWA provided a $13,975 grant for the project, whose total cost was $31,250. Construction began at the end of December 1938 and the building was completed in July 1939. Artesia Walking Tour: brought several City departments together under the same roof, including the City Clerk, City Manager, and the Public Library. The WPA Sewing Room also was there, as well as an assembly room for public meetings. In later years, the Police and Fire departments...

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: "Situated on a city block on the southwest corner of Becker Avenue and South Fifth Street, the former Belen city hall is a two-story, multi-mass institutional interpretation of the regional Spanish-Pueblo Revival style. Constructed of adobe in 1936-37, as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, it is distinguished by its massed composition and its north elevation portal. It is fenestrated with a mostly - regular pattern of openings, including sets of original four-over-four and six-over-six, double-hung wood windows. The upstairs is dominated by what was once an assembly room for the facility. The former...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed the former city hall in Lordsburg, New Mexico. Operations have since been relocated. The site of the historic New Deal city hall is presently unknown to Living New Deal. "Another city with a list of projects is Lordsburg: Lordsburg City Hall, Hidalgo County Fairgrounds, Animas High School and the Sunset Canal Dam. The Lordsburg-Hidalgo Public Library is one that also originally housed the Health Department and Justice of the Peace. People often stop at the Library to revisit the place where they were married. Windows in the children's section were replaced with stained glass commemorating...

The W.P.A. constructed the former City Hall building, located at the northwest corner of East Center St. and South Adams St., in Tucumcari. The former city hall is adjacent to the current city hall, which located just to the west. The W.P.A. building later housed the police department and municipal court. However, as of 2018 the facility is vacant.

The Portales City Park and swimming pool were constructed as New Deal projects, most likely by the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

A WPA public school (abandoned) with two different dates engraved on different buildings, suggesting that it may have been built first as an elementary school and then later as a high school (see pictures). The buildings are now abandoned.

"The Clayton School buildings were constructed as Works Progress Administration projects in the late 1930s. The buildings are in a Pueblo Revival architectural style. There are several buildings within the complex. Within the junior high school is a museum of WPA projects. Must stop at administrative office to visit the museum." -Waymarking

The historic Colfax County Courthouse was constructed with the assistance of the federal Public Works Administration (P.W.A.). The P.W.A. provided a $110,455 grant for the project, whose total cost was $272,377. Construction occurred between 1936 and 1937. Santa Fe Trail: The Colfax County Courthouse is a five-story blond brick building typical of the 1936 Art Deco style architecture. Embellishments include glazed tile cornices, bas-reliefs depicting local farming, mining & cattle raising, art deco light fixtures and local cattlebrands are bronzed over exterior doors. Terrazzo floors, tile wainscoating, chipped-tile roof on top story and flat roofs on lower areas make for quite an...

The Atlas of Historic New Mexico Maps, produced with assistance from the New Mexico Humanities Council and the New Mexico Chapter of the National New Deal Preservation Association, lists a number of New Deal schools in Raton Kearny Elementary, Longfellow Elementary, Columbian School, and Raton Junior-Senior High School are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The New Mexico Humanities Council and the New Mexico Chapter of the National New Deal Preservation Association list Columbus City Hall on their map of New Deal structures built in New Mexico.

"Deming has an impressive list of WPA projects: Deming Public Library, Country Club, Junior High, Morgan Hall, Columbus School, Sunshine School, Hospital addition, Park, street paving, sewer work, curbs and trees plus a National Guard building." -Phyllis Eileen Banks

"Conchas Dam is the oldest and one of the largest water projects of the US Army Corps of Engineers in New Mexico. Begun under the New Deal's Emergency Relief Act of 1935, the construction of the dam and associated facilities provided employment for nearly 2400 people. The WPA supported school teachers for the children of the work crews and after the dam was completed, the work camp provided housing for CCC crews building onsite recreational facilities. Today the headquarters building is still in use, and five other units provide housing for staff." -Treasures on New Mexico Trails The following quotes are all...

The CCC-built administration building of the park contains two WPA murals "by Odon Hullenkremer, a Hungarian-bom artist who worked with the WPA Federal Art Project during the 1930s. The larger of the paintings, six feet by twelve feet, hangs on the north wall of the Visitor Center in the administration building and is called "Commencement of Main Dam Construction." The foreground of this painting depicts four surveyors with their instruments. The actual identities of the surveyors depicted have been verified by their descendents. In the background are depicted machines and men at work. The second Hullenkremer painting, "Conchas City, New...

This school, located at the northeast corner of Duboise Ave. and Pinon Street in Corona, New Mexico, was constructed ca. 1939 by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). WPA Official Project # 665-85-2-196.

"For years, a territorial-style two-story building has stood as an unofficial sentry into the Barelas neighborhood at Fourth Street coming from Downtown. Until 1975, it was an elementary school that had been built by the Public Works Administration as part of the New Deal that eventually was too small for the hordes of neighborhood children. And until recently, it housed Albuquerque Public Schools administrators and records, as transients patrolled the nearby streets searching for local soup kitchens. Come August, the freshly scrubbed and modernized Coronado Elementary at 601 Fourth SW will again house students to accommodate an increased demand for...

"President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs put people to work. Young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built flood control projects at Elephant Butte Dam. Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers built three schools in Las Cruces, including Court Junior High. They also built numerous tourist and recreation facilities in the area. Picacho Avenue earned the nickname 'Little Oklahoma' when it became a thoroughfare for refugees bound for California. Stranded and destitute, travelers sold their belongings for gas money. This roadside trade was the precursor of Picacho Avenue's antique and second-hand stores." -Las Cruces: Crossroads of History

This school was built for the small community of Cruzville in 1938 by the WPA. The building is apparently now privately owned.

Starting in 1937, the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed approximately 5,830 linear feet masonry curb and gutter in Carrizozo, New Mexico under WPA Official Project # 65-85-1199. Much of it survives today.

The historic Curry County Courthouse (and jail) in Clovis, New Mexico was developed as a New Deal project in 1936. The Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) provided a $73,507 grant for the project, whose total cost was $163,388. P.W.A. Docket No. N.M. 1015

Under the auspices of the Public Works of Art Project (and not, as some sources site, the Treasury Section of Fine Arts), Russel Vernon Hunter painted three murals for the De Baca County Courthouse. The murals are on the second floor of the courthouse. Collectively entitled "The Last Frontier," they depict several scenes from De Baca County's history.

"Thanks to Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, which promised jobs to needy citizen, many facets of modern-day Roswell were born. Workers from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built several schools, Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, a city hall, DeBremond Stadium, and Roswell's first museum in 1937, today known as the Roswell Museum and Art Center." -John LeMay

"Golf was played on land leased and eventually purchased from the City of Deming. The original course (nine holes) started with sand greens, but since sand tended to blow out in strong winds magnetite was used to replace the sand. In 1932, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created to provide jobs and stimulate the economy. The building which was to become the Clubhouse was built by the WPA in 1935. The building was completed in 1936 and served as administration headquarters for just over a year. In the spring of 1938, New Mexico WPA Administration approved the use...

"The land on the corner of Tin and Hemlock, was acquired in 1921 for $900. It was not until 1935, however, that the library building was constructed with funds provided by the Public Works Administration. Although the building was remodeled and enlarged throughout the years, the original architectural style was preserved. Built of adobe with beamed ceilings in the original part of the building, it is a typical southwestern structure, featuring a beautiful Spanish corner fireplace in the room which housed the fine Southwestern collection. An added attraction were the hand painted windows depicting wildflowers of New Mexico. The latest addition...

Dedicated on June 23 1934, the Don Gaspar Bridge opened a new crossing to the emerging Capitol Complex south of the Santa Fe River. Designed in the Pueblo Revival manner, the bridge is important for consciously applying the so-called “Santa Fe style” to a utilitarian structure. Made of a rigid-frame design, the bridge was the first of its type in New Mexico and became the standard for subsequent spans over the Santa Fe River. Construction of the Don Gaspar Bridge is tied directly to a New Deal program aimed at improving municipal transportation during the Depression. Created by Executive order...

"The WPA partially funded the construction of the Old Dona Ana County Courthouse (251 West Amador) a three story white adobe with exposed vigas and wooden balconies." -New Mexico the Off Road

"A number of other APS buildings were built, remodeled, or had additions built as the result of this source of this source of funding. Likewise adjacent school playgrounds, ball fields, etc. were also created. The schools include Armijo, Coronado, Duranes, Five Points School, La Mesa, Lincoln, Los Candelarias, Pajarito, San Jose, Santa Barbara, and Stronghurst. For specific information on each of these refer to the Albuquerque Museum Monograph written by Charles Biebel." -Treasures on New Mexico Trails

On August 22, 1935, the Grant County Board of Education submitted a WPA proposal to build a new school in Dwyer, a homesteading community straddling the Mimbres River, 40 miles southeast of the county seat in Silver City. The board had been busy the summer and into the fall, preparing similar project proposals for far-flung rural school districts in the county. It justified the need for the Dwyer school, stating in the application that the original adobe schoolhouse, constructed 30 years prior, “is unsafe and is beyond repair. It is poorly lighted and hard to heat sufficiently for pupils’ needs,” concluding, “a...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) developed the former Eastern New Mexico State Park, occasionally referred to as "Blackwater Draw Park", ca. 1934-6. Flynn: "This CCC-built site was originally created to reforest 9,600 acres of that Dust Bowl area. Later the state government reduced the amount of acreage to 400. The CCC built a large bath house, other houses, camping areas and a lake. All but one long house near the highway remains and was most likely the home for the park manager. In 1951 the state deeded the property to Eastern New Mexico University in Portales and they later built a large...

Eastern New Mexico University saw great improvements resulting from the efforts and funding of multiple New Deal programs. The campus is home to several outstanding New Deal buildings and artworks.

Sometimes mis-attributed to the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Public Works Administration provided funding for the expansion of the Eddy County Courthouse and jail in 1939. Treasures on New Mexico Trails: "Eddy County Courthouse was begun in 1891, with additions in 1914 and 1939. The 1939 addition was done by the WPA for $185,000." Eddy County History: "Eddy County was named for Charles B. Eddy, a rancher in southeastern New Mexico during the last decades of the 19th century. ... The original courthouse built a few years after the creation of the county was a Victorian structure built for $21,000 with a...