Tennessee Sites

This mural, "Early U.S. Post Village", painted by Karl Oberteuffer under the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, was completed in 1938. It was transferred to the new McKenzie post office building in 1988. Upon its installation, Oberteuffer wrote an acquaintance, "There were many who saw the mural, and all seemed to be pleased with it. All comments seemed to be favorable and the postmaster was obviously proud of it." (Tennessee Post Office Murals, p. 109)

This mural, "Early Settlers Entering Mt. Pleasant" was completed with New Deal funds in 1942.

This mural, "Autumn" was completed with New Deal funds in 1940.

This mural by Thelma Martin, "Wild Boar Hunt" was completed with New Deal funds in 1942.

Artist F. Luis Mora painted "Arrival of the Renfro Family" and "Abundance of Today" in 1938 for what was then the Clarksville post office (now Federal Building). The two murals were placed in the lobby January 20, 1938 by the New York artist, assisted by Harry E. Brastead of the Southwest Decorating Company, Wichita, Kansas. Mora painted the murals in 4 months, and they were 12 feet by 5 feet each. Mora attributed the idea for the murals to reading the historical pageant of Clarksville, "Through the Mist of the Years" written by Rev. Arthur E. Whittle. One of the...

The since-abandoned Putnam County Airport in Cookeville, Tennessee was built with Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) labor. Tennessee Encyclopedia: "Some of Tennessee's largest WPA projects reflected the arrival of the age of flight. WPA workers helped complete landing fields and airports at Jellico, Cookeville, Lebanon, Jackson, and Milan." A high school now occupies what had been the southern part of the airport.

The brick "restrained Colonial Revival style" (Van West, 2001, p. 148) two-story apartment complex contained 48 units for African-Americans. Constructed at the same time as the Robert E. Lee Homes for whites, both complexes were funded for a total of $607,000. The facility was demolished in 2008 in order to construct new housing.

The historic former Roane County Courthouse in Kingston, Tennessee received a two-story addition during the Great Depression with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The building remained in use as the courthouse until 1974, and is in use currently as a museum and home to the Roane County Historical Association.

Brick, two-story "restrained Colonial Revival style" (Van West, 2001, p. 148) housing for whites was completed at the same time as the Riverview Apartments for African-Americans. Both complexes were constructed for a total of $607,000. Robert E. Lee contained 128 units. The facility remains in use.

The Treasury Department funded the construction of the New Deal-era Sevierville post office in Sevierville, TN. The post office has since relocated, and the early-'40s building currently serves as the Sevier County Heritage Museum.

Wendell Jones painted this Section of Fine Arts oil on canvas mural, "Farmer Family" for the Johnson City post office in 1940. "Farmer Family" was moved from the old post office when a new one was built and now hangs in the Sherrod Library on the East Tennessee State University campus. The figure below the cow's tail is a self-portrait of the artist. The Red Setter was Jones's dog and the Irish Setter belonged to friend George Ludin, another prominent artists.  

Beginning in 1934, 400 African American WWI veterans were employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to participate in restoration of the Civil War battlefield. As Timothy Smith writes in “Black Soldiers and the CCC at Shiloh National Military Park”: “Among the chief beneficiaries of the New Deal's job creation programs were Shiloh and other national parks, to which thousands of laborers were sent to construct, rehabilitate, and restore. In the case of Shiloh, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) employed several hundred local men from Hardin and McNairy counties on erosion control projects, road maintenance, and excavations at Shiloh's Indian mounds. The...

The former school "retains much of its architectural presence, especially in the four brick pilasters with Doric capitals that define its central entrance" (Van West, 2001, p. 113). It closed as a school in 1992 and is currently used to house small businesses.

"Standing Stone State Park is a state park in Overton County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The park consists of 855 acres (3.46 km2) along the shoreline of the man-made 69-acre (0.28 km2) Standing Stone Lake. The 11,000-acre (45 km2) Standing Stone State Forest surrounds the park. The park and forest were developed in the 1930s as part of New Deal-era initiatives to relocate impoverished farmers and restore forests to degraded and heavily eroded lands. The park was named after the Standing Stone, a mysterious rock believed to be of Native American origin or importance that once stood along the old Walton Road...

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) constructed a stockyards building and enclosed a lot for sales, on North Cumberland Street in Morristown, Tennessee. The project included a "modern horse and mule shed," and enabled farmers to sell their stock in a location other than on the streets. The location and status of the project is presently unknown to Living New Deal.

Multiple street paving and improvement projects in Chattanooga, Tennessee were undertaken with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. In one paving project, the PWA supplied a $25,261 grant toward the $58,846 eventual total cost of the project. Work occurred between March and June 1936. The PWA supplied a $98,994 grant for similar work undertaken soon after. (PWA Docket No. TN 1159, 1160)

Numerous and widespread street paving and improvement projects in Memphis, Tennessee were undertaken with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds during the Great Depression. (PWA Docket Nos. TN W1111, W1112, W1113, W1114, W1115, W1224, W1225, W1228, W1239)

Sumner County Courthouse in Gallatin, Tennessee was erected with the assistance of funds provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA) during the Great Depression. The two-story PWA Moderne courthouse replaced an older Greek Revival style building and was the last PWA courthouse to be constructed in Tennessee (Van West, 2001). Total cost was $170,000 and the PWA provided $78,750.

"T.O. Fuller State Park is a state park in the city of Memphis in West Tennessee. It consists of 1,138 acres (4.6 km²) of mostly forest located in South Memphis on Mitchell Road. It is the only state park within the city limits and is one of the few locations within the city suitable for wildlife. The park is named in honor of Dr. Thomas O. Fuller, who spent his life empowering and educating African Americans. The park facilities were originally built for the use of African Americans in the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was the second...

Bristol's Tennessee High School was constructed between 1937 and 1939 with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds during the Great Depression. The building is an exemplary example of Colonial Revival school architecture.

This cast-metal portrait bust of Admiral Albert Gleaves by Belle Kinney was funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. It was originally installed in the old Nashville U.S. Courthouse & Post Office building, but now resides at the Tennessee State Capitol.

The mural entitled "Scenes from Tennessee History," made up of 11 panels, was painted by Jihayr Zorthian.  It can be found in the Governor's Reception Hall in the Tennessee State Capitol.  The Federal Art Project (FAP) commissioned the work.

Tennessee State University was established in 1909 as Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College, a land-grant college.  It is the only state-funded historically Black college or university in Tennessee. The New Deal helped a great deal to  build up the Tennessee A & I College campus in the 1930s. Early in 1935, the college announced the opening of six new buildings on campus: Practice Hall, Administration and Health, Men’s Hall (East), Hale Hall, Wilson Hall, and Science Hall (Harned). These were almost certainly funded by the New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA).  It is hard to imagine the college having the...

The Public Works Administration (PWA) paid for construction of Tennessee's Supreme Court building in 1937-38.  The state's highest court had not previously had its own building, having been housed in the state capitol.  The structure also contains the....  Short and Stanley-Brown recorded in their 1939 report on PWA projects that: "Before the erection of this building the supreme court was housed in the State capitol and its offices were located in rented quarters in various parts of the city. The new structure houses the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Tennessee Court of Appeals, the legal department of the State government, the attorney general...

The Hermitage was a plantation operated by enslaved African Americans and owned by president Andrew Jackson from 1804 until 1845. The site is now a historical site and museum. "In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) donated $70,000 towards repairs and restoration work at The Hermitage. This included the construction of new support buildings, such as a ticket office, a greenhouse, a home for the caretakers and a large pond to fight fires."   (https://thehermitage.com/preservation/)

The Stone Castle (Bristol Municipal Stadium) at Tennessee High School in Bristol, Tennessee was constructed with the assistance of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds between 1934 and 1936. Limestome for the stadium was locally quarried for Bristol's flood control project, undertaken by the Civil Works Administration (CWA). The stadium, designed by architect R. V. Arnold, seats 6,000.

"During the 1930s and 1940s the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built, owned, and administered the community of Norris for fifteen years... New urban theorists are hard at work designing the town of the future. But Norris, Tennessee, built by TVA nearly 70 years ago, beat them all to the punch... The immediate purpose of the town was to house the workers building Norris Dam four miles away on the Clinch River. The second purpose, which may have been even more important to Morgan, was to show America that cooperative living works. The houses would be built on a modest and tasteful scale,...

The federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped to construct what was then known as McKellar Field during the Great Depression. Two runways of hard surface material, one 4,000 feet and one 3,000 feet, a two-story administration building with control tower, hangar, water supply system, lighting system, and drainage system were constructed the public airport, which served Kingsport, Bristol, Johnson City, and Sullivan County. At the time of construction it was the largest of the state's WPA airport projects, and cost $800,000 (not adjusted for inflation). The facility is now known as Tri-Cities Regional Airport.

At peak enrollment, 4,300 workers from 23 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps located in the Smoky Mountains constructed the roads, trails, bridges, campgrounds and structures of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The project was undertaken between 1933 and 1940.

U.S. Highway 129 was extended to Knoxville during the mid-1930s as part of a New Deal project associated with the construction of McGhee Tyson Airport. The 1935 topographic map, shown here, identifies the road as State Highway 33A. The road was expanded since the time of the original construction. No New Deal-era bridges were located in the partial survey of the road in December 2017.

Construction of new additions to the 1884 US Marine Hospital in Memphis began in 1933, although the majority of the work was completed by WPA crews after 1935 (Van West, 2001, p. 94). Buildings added by WPA were the 3-story neoclassical hospital building, a nurses dormitory, and junior officers quarters (Metal Museum). The hospital closed in 1965 and currently houses the Metal Museum.

The Union City Armory was undertaken in Union City, Tennessee during the Great Depression with the assistance of the Public Works Administration (PWA). The rare PWA funded Armory was constructed in "restrained Art Deco" (Van West, p. 87) style for a total cost of $30,000. The armory fulfilled both military and local community functions, serving as the base of Company K, 117th Infantry Regiment of the National Guard during World War II as well as hosting community events. The armory became private property in 1980.

The Union City High School was erected in Union City, Tennessee during the Great Depression with the assistance of the Public Works Administration (PWA). The PWA Moderne, one-story brick school included an auditorium and football field and replaced a three story brick school demolished as part of the construction of the Central Elementary School project. The school grounds were quickly used as the grounds for a federal Office of Education pilot program, "Home and Family Life," which expanded upon an earlier Works Progress Administration (WPA) adult education program. The PWA high school is currently used as Union City Middle School.

The Public Works Administration (PWA) and VA built the psychiatric hospital in Murfreesboro between 1936, when President Roosevelt authorized it, and 1940, when it was opened. It is presently known as the Alvin C. York Campus.

The Walter Stokes School in Nashville, Tennessee was undertaken with the assistance of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. The Colonial Revival building was constructed with ten classrooms and a cafeteria. It temporarily housed Julia Green Elementary School and continues to operate as Walter Stokes Middle School following rejected plans to sell the property in 2010. As of 2014: The school has been sold to the nearby Lipscomb University, a private Christian institution. For now, the building stands vacant and the grounds serve as a parking area for the college. It would not be surprising were the college...

Construction for Watauga State Park began in 1939 with the CCC arrival to survey, clear land, and begin dam construction and other facilities (Van West, 2001). Kingsport Times (Sept. 18, 1939) indicated the name Watauga was rejected due to so many nearby projects with the name Watauga, and the park was to be named Kettlefoot State Park, but other records indicating a name change were not located. The CCC camp was expected to be completed by October, 1939, and landscape architects were developing park designs. Watauga State Park was developed as one of four Recreation Demonstration Areas for Tennessee (Jones...

A waterworks-improvement construction project in Knoxville, Tennessee was undertaken with the aid of federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The PWA supplied a $90,000 grant toward the $152,209 eventual total cost of the project. Work occurred between October 1938 and November 1939. (PWA Docket No. TN 1091)

The Works progress Administration made improvements to Watkins Park in Nashville TN. It is located Across 17th Ave N from the Public Works Administration-funded former Pearl High School.

"Watts Bar Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River ... one of nine dams on the main Tennessee River channel operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1940s to provide flood control and electricity and to help create a continuous navigable channel along the entire length of the river. The dam is the technical boundary between the ... Watts Bar Lake— which it impounds— and Chickamauga Lake ..." (Wikipedia)

West End Middle School in Nashville, Tennessee was originally erected as a High School with the assistance of funds provided by the Public Works Administration (PWA). West End was constructed in Colonial Revival style, with 35 classrooms, 8 of which were science labs. The "horizontal, three-story central block" and "soaring 122-foot high cupola" was described as a west Nashville landmark (Van West, 2001, p. 103). The building also contained a library, cafeteria, gymnasium, and auditorium with 63x28 foot stage. It was converted to use as a middle school in recent years.