Oklahoma Sites

The park contains four concrete WPA tennis courts. New nets and a fence have been added.

The Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed this culvert in Arcadia, Oklahoma in the 1930s. It is located on Hiwassee Road about a 3/4 mile north of Route 66. It carries runoff from a narrow, deep ditch. It is buried deep in the high grass and is not visible from the road.

The Union City High School building was constructed in 1937 under the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works program, later named the Public Works Administration (PWA).

"The former Chandler High School, located at 515 Steele in the northwest section of Chandler was constructed by the WPA during a three-three period beginning in 1940, at a cost of almost $110,000. This is a beautiful building in the Art Moderne style, accentuating the horizontal lines... It is a beautiful building, even today. At the entrance on the east side, and the doors on the north and south are cast ornamental plaques depicting various school-related activities. There are also etched quotations. The school opened on September 7, 1942 and remained open until 1994. When the school closed, the building continued to house...

The historic 1941 high school and gymnasium facility in Fairland, Oklahoma was constructed by the Work Projects Administration (WPA). With walls built half out of native stone and half of recycled bricks, the building was most unusual. The structure has been integrated into a larger educational complex that has been built around it.

Constructed by the WPA in 1935 out of native rock. The building was demolished years ago.

The Works Progress Administration built an addition for the Binger High School. Contributor note: "The current Binger-Oney High School is a recent building located at 323 S. Apache. On the eastern part of the school grounds at the corner of W. Cedar Street and S. Broadway, this WPA construction is a two-story brick auditorium to the original one-story school which is no longer visible from the street. This addition was constructed in 1936 and is listed as an "addition, porch and entry". The brick building is painted a cream color and has a beautiful mural painted on the north side. The east entrance...

"This school addition, built by the WPA, is adjacent to the Guthrie Jr. High School... The Guthrie Junior High School was constructed in 1924, originally as the Guthrie High School. It is a beautiful brick and stone building, immediately adjacent to the east of this addition. This WPA-constructed building has no shield or identifier, but is shown on a list of WPA properties in Logan County. The contractor is shown as Chas. M. Moureau Company. The property is shown as being at Oklahoma and Maple, but is most likely addressed as 705 E. Oklahoma, the school address... The building is not attached to...

"This is a two-story brick high school auditorium which faces north on W. Main Street. There is no WPA signage here that we could find. A reference to it was found in the book "Leaning on a Legacy" which refers to a school on Main Street in Marlow as being a WPA project. It is also listed in the Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory as WPA. It was constructed in 1938 with an appropriation of $52,436. The building has embellishments, using stone window sills and small squares at the upper corners of the windows. Bricks are laid in a variety of patterns,...

The Oklahoma Historical Society database shows this campus, which included several buildings, as having been built by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938. The main high school was a one-story brick building with a concrete foundation. Today there is only one partial wall, and an empty foundation area.

The Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) completed construction of the Fletcher High School Gym in 1938. The Waymarking site for this building says that, although the gym is still in use at Fletcher High School, it is now surrounded by newer buildings that block its view from the street. The Waymarking site goes to explain that: "At the corner of East Drive and Hornady Street is the Fletcher High School campus. At the center of the campus, behind newer buildings, this red brick WPA school gym and auditorium stands firm, anchoring the complex. It was built in 1938 with an appropriation of $27,270."

"This is a one-story rectangular, one-room chapel constructed in 1940 by the WPA. It is built of cut and coursed rusticated native stone and has a gabled roof, currently covered with metal siding. The building is currently used as a maintenance building for the cemetery. A large overhead door has been installed, and the two windows in front and three at the rear have been boarded up. "The end walls are stepped and rise above the roof line. A concrete cross has been built into the stone side wall. The building is approximately 30 by 16 feet. "Documentation of WPA construction and...

"This is a one-story rectangular, one-room chapel constructed in 1940 by the WPA. It is built of cut and coursed rusticated native stone and has a gabled roof, currently covered with metal siding. The building is currently used as a maintenance building for the cemetery. A large overhead door has been installed, and the two windows in front and three at the rear have been boarded up. The end walls are stepped and rise above the roof line. A concrete cross has been built into the stone side wall. The building is approximately 30 by 16 feet."   (www.waymarking.com)

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Highland Cemetery Entrance in Lawton OK. Contributor note: Highland Cemetery, located on NW Fort Sill Blvd. in northeastern Lawton is a large cemetery with over 20,000 burials. The entrance faces west and consists of a randomly laid native stone arch. A granite plaque above the arch reads "HIGHLAND CEMETERY" and above that a small stone reads "WPA". At the top of each of the two stone pillars supporting the arch is the date: "19" and "36".

"Highland Hall was a WPA project. This building is still in use as a community building and can be reserved for an event... Located on the north side of Highland Park, Highland Hall was a WPA project. This is a one-story native sandstone building, used today as a community center available for meetings and events. The building has a centered entrance that is an aluminum and glass door with sidelight. There are eight 6/6 double hung windows with stone sills across the facade. The roof is gabled and covered with composition shingles. A kitchen area extends out from the rear of...

"The swimming pool and bathhouse at Highland Park, built by the WPA in the 1930s is still in use today. Established in 1890, one year after the city was first settled in the Land Run of 1889, Highland Park is part of the National Historic District of Guthrie. The main entrance faces south onto E. Warner Street in the 1100 block. On the west side of the large swimming pool, a one-story masonry bathhouse stands. The building has been covered with stucco and painted a light color, with its main entrance on the west side in a projected vestible. The entrance is...

"This is one of the small WPA projects that you stumble across in your travels. Highley Park is a small neighborhood park located on N. Virginia Avenue, between N.W. 7th and 8th. The park has a large grassy area, and a playground. No other facilities are provided. At the southwest and northwest corners of this park, adjacent to the sidewalk, are two native sandstone walls approximately three feet in height, and thirty feet long. Two sections run parallel to the sidewalks, connected with a curved section. Built during the 1930s, this is one of the projects which provided employment to local men during...

The Works Progress Administration built a Highway 9 underpass in Carnegie, OK. Contributor note: "This pedestrian underpass is located on the southwest corner of Broadway and E. 4th Street (State Highway 9). An elementary school is located on the south end, and a residential area on the north. The underpass goes north-south under E. 4th Street. The exposed entrances are built of concrete and stone, and have been painted red and white. The WPA shield showing the year 1936 was worked into the concrete alongside the stairwell on both sides of the road. The underpass was clear and appears to be still...

The Works Progress Administration built a highway culvert in Gotebo, OK. Contributor note: "This culvert crosses Highway 9 in front of the Gotebo Post Office.  This is a concrete culvert which runs north-south across Highway 9, just west of Highway 54. The opening is about 4 ft. wide and 2 ft. deep, and the date 1938 is shown on the WPA stamp on the curbing."

The WPA constructed a stone fence and pavilion of uncut native stone at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Weleetka in 1935. (It is also known as the Crestwood Cemetery). At the time of the 1985 Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory, part of the north side of the wall had collapsed, but as of 2005, the other three sides were still in good shape.

A 1985 Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory of WPA buildings describes a 1938 school in Hitchita, Oklahoma. The survey describes the school in detail: "This school of twelve rooms is a single-story, rectangular (145' x 58') structure constructed of uncut native stone of auburn and buff colors. The building's base, however, is made of cut, coursed and rusticated native stone of buff color. All doors are recessed behind archways. There is a horizontal frieze dividing the two types of stone. The sashed windows contain wood inserts painted brown. A gymnasium is attached to the south side of the school. These alterations do not...

This culvert was one of 2500 culvert constructed in Oklahoma by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). A WPA stamp on the concrete curbing shows the year 1936. The culvert is a reinforced concrete tunnel approximately 4 ft. high and 6 feet wide. It carries water under Hiwassee Road at the location of an unnamed creek. It is about one mile north of Route 66.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the City Park in Hobart, OK. Contributor note: "This large, well-equipped park is bordered on the north by E. Ash, on the south by E. Iris, on the east by N. Lincoln and on the west by N. Jefferson. The park can be accessed from all directions but the original main entrance is on the south and the coordinates shown are for this entrance with its two brick pillars. This entrance, plus a stone wall along the south side of the park were constructed by the WPA. As you enter on the south, the pool and bathhouse...

“WPA projects both directly and indirectly affected fish and wildlife. More than 300 fish hatcheries were built or enlarged nationwide. Creating fish hatcheries was important economically, as well as for sport fisherman….Some of the fish hatcheries established or improved by WPA were located in or near Cherokee, Durant, Lawton, Tishomingo, Krebs, Lake Overholser in Oklahoma City, and Mohawk Park in Tulsa. A fish hatchery is on the city lake at Holdenville in Hughes County, where the WPA built a caretaker cottage and office building. With few details of location given, fish hatcheries have been hard to locate 70 years later. At...

The facility in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge was constructed with the support of $94,000 from the New Deal administration funding. The Works Progress Administration hired 150 craftsmen to construct the structures of wood. They were later faced with concrete and native stone to resemble Jerusalem buildings. The site has hosted an annual passion play since 1926, although the large crowds traveling to see the play prompted the building of a permanent facility in 1934-35. It opened in 1936.

"This building is listed on the Oklahoma Landmark Inventory database as the Industrial Building for Home Economics District #1. It was a WPA construction from 1935 with an appropriation of $5,984. The building is constructed of native sandstone. It is a high-ceiling one-story building, with a gable roof that does not extend to the outer walls. The Oklahoma Landmark database indicates that it is possible the original roof may have burned and has been replaced. All windows have been infilled with wood. We were unable to determine how the building is being used at the current time."   (waymarking.com)

"The Hominy Armory is a single story building measuring 257 feet x 141 feet. It was constructed between 1935 and 1937 by the Works Progress Administration. It originally housed the Hominy National Guard."   (wikipedia) As of 1994 it was still in use as a National Guard Armory, but it now houses the town's police and fire departments.

In 1940 the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped finance the expansion of Horace Mann Elementary School. The WPA-additions included a classroom and an auditorium. A report that ran in The Oklahoman on October 13, 1940 notes that in the process of constructing the additions, laborers first demolished the 1907 foundation that had been left when newer Horace Mann Elementary was built in 1927. Hamquilter's Waymarking web page for Horace Mann Elementary describes the additions as follows: "As was common under the WPA, an addition (in this case, a classroom/auditorium addition), was constructed in 1940, perpendicular to the original school. As is the school, this...

What is now the Hugo School Administration Office was constructed as the community's post office during the Great Depression. The re-purposed building continues to house New Deal artwork inside.

John A. Fleck painted the mural "Choctaw Indians See the First Mail Coach" in 1938 for the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. The mural was painted for what was then the Hugo post office, now the Hugo School Administration Office.

The red brick gymnasium and classroom buildings were constructed by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938-1939. The buildings originally belonged to Gray High School. Today, the gymnasium is used by Idabel Middle School. However, the gymnasium was rebuilt following a fire in the past year (2017). The extent of the reconstruction and how much of what we see today is original cannot be determined. Although the one-story brick classroom building still exists, it is not in use. It has been boarded up.    

“The stadium in Muskogee is called the Indian Bowl, and is made of white concrete. No WPA marker is visible, but the stadium is on the list of WPA properties. It was constructed with WPA funds and was eligible to be on the National Register. The adjacent Alice Robertson School is made from buff-colored brick.”

"Located on N. Broadway in the small town of Inola, this is a T-shaped, 10-room school house and auditorium constructed by the WPA in 1940. A bronze shield on the building documents this. "The school faces Broadway, with a perpendicular auditorium extension to the rear. Construction is of cut, coursed and rusticated native stone. There are seven bays, separated by stone columns, raised above the roofline. Windows are set in groups of one and three, with brick surrounds and have been replaced with fixed panes. The front entrance has double doors and sidelights slightly recessed under a stepped parapet, with low...

Located at the southwest corner of U.S. 59 and S 550 Rd., a few miles east of Afton, Oklahoma, the former Iron Post school building was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938. Built of uncut native stone, the 73' x 26' building is now privately owned.

"Irving School, located at 12th and Sycamore in Duncan is currently a Pre-K Center and Head Start program. The School was a WPA project, built in 1935 as a two-story school, with an appropriation of $23,576. In 1966, the second story was removed and additional construction was completed on the first floor... The Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory provides the following information on this building: IRVING SCHOOL, DUNCAN, OK, WAS ORIGINALLY A TWO STORY BUILDING. OF THE WPA GRADESCHOOLS (IRVING, LEE, EMERSON), IRVING IS THE ONLY ONE USING THE ORIGINAL BUILDING, THE OTHERS WERE RAZED IN THE MIDDLE 60'S WHEN NEW BUILDINGS WERE BUILT....

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Jackson School in Pauls Valley OK. Contributor note: "Jackson Elementary School is located at 1015 S. Walnut and is an active elementary school today. It has an Art Deco theme, which was rare for the architect Albert S. Ross. The school is a one story buff brick building constructed in an L-shape, with a flat roof. Later additions to the school have been built at each end, to closely resemble the original. The windows are set in triples with three large panes each. Four belts in darker brick run above and below the windows, and "through"...

In 1934 additions to Jefferson Elementary in Shawnee, Oklahoma were built with the support of the Federal Public Works Administration (PWA). The building's cornerstone that is located to the left of the entrance says that this construction project was the first Federal Public Works project in Oklahoma. The additions included an auditorium and more classrooms. These were much needed add-ons to the one-story building that had been hastily constructed on the site of the original Jefferson Elementary in order to replace the one that had been built in 1904 but had been destroyed by a tornado in 1924. A catalogue of Pottawatomie news...

Jefferson Elementary school is one of three built by the WPA. Contributor note: "Jefferson Elementary School is located at 500 E. Garvin at the corner of S. Cherry Street. This is a one-story L-shaped school with a flat roof, capped with Spanish tile. Red metal siding has been added to the upper walls, with a shallow gable roof. The windows are three-pane set in singles, doubles and triples. On the west side of the school, there are two brick bay window units with tile roofs. A 1-1/2 story brick tower is located at the northwest corner, which has a tile pyramid roof...

"Jelsma Stadium, constructed by the WPA, was selected by ESPN as No. 13 Best High School Stadium in the nation, in 2008. Lawrence Jelsma was a business and civic leader in Guthrie during the 1920s and 1930s. With his encouragement a $14,500 bond issue was passed and, together with funds from the WPA, this stadium was able to be built at a cost of $48,500. Unfortunately, Jelsma did not live to see the first game played here, as he passed away in 1934 at the age of 1941 from pneumonia. The amazing thing about this stadium is the 30-foot high native sandstone...

Contributor note: "Jim Thorpe Park is located off Highway 51 on the east side of Yale. It was primarily a landscaping project. Drives bisect the park in both directions. Today, it is an active area, however, most of the recreational venues post-date the WPA. Evidence of the WPA work can be seen on the west side of the park. Just north of the swimming pool is a picnic area. The tables and benches are made of concrete and small rocks, with concrete tops. To the northwest of this is an area which contains three small picnic tables and two rock fire pits,...