Brownsville Sites

In 1933 a Category 5 hurricane known as the 1933 Cuba destroyed a large part of Brownsville, Texas, and caused massive damages to Fort Brown, U.S. Army fort. During the New Deal, Fort Brown received funding and labor to make improvements to the fort and surrounding land. The Works Project Administration (WPA) authorized a $70,765 improvement program that employed 119 workers to improve landscaping, building river bank revetments, resurfacing roads, and doing a large amount of the work on fort buildings. The purpose behind the river bank revetments was to stabilize the Rio Grande riverbank in case of storms and to...

"In January 1929 the Brownsville Navigation District was organized to secure a channel up the Rio Grande, 100 feet wide and 25 feet deep from the Gulf to a port near Brownsville. Work was started at the mouth of the channel in December 1933 and the entire project, including the terminal facilities, was substantially completed in August 1937. The project consisted of heavy rock jetties, a dredged channel 16 3/4 miles long leading to a turning basin 7 1/2 miles from the city of Brownsville, a concrete wharf, transit sheds, a separate oil dock, and rail and highway connections....

The Brownsville Herald: "Sixty men were at work Tuesday on Brownsville's biggest WPA sewer project, involving an expected expense of $121,868 of federal money and $41,179 from city funds. Work was started in the Los Ebanos section, where new sewers are urgently needed. Crews will later be increased until 208 men will be employed."