Dallas Sites

Text on a plaque in the building reads: The Bachman Lake Shelter House was designed by the National Park Service and constructed by the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939. Just as today, the shelter served the community as a gathering place. The building continues to serve our community as a place for special events. In 2006, Bachman Lake Shelter House was carefully restored to its original configuration and appearance through the coordinated efforts of The Bachman Lake Foundation and Dallas Park and Recreation Department. Dedicated November 18, 2006.

"A vacant site of approximately 22 acres was purchased for the Cedar Springs Place low-rent housing development in Dallas, Texas. It cost $66,149, or about 7 cents per square foot. The structures cover 15 percent of the land area and contain an average of 27 rooms to the acre. The development consists of a series of 2-story apartment buildings and 1-story row houses with no basements. All buildings are fireproof. There are 598 rooms divided into 181 family-dwelling units, approximately 13 percent of which are arranged in 2-room, 51 percent in 3-room, 28 percent in 4-room, and 8 percent in 5-room...

Civilian Conservation Camp SP-55-TX is the main encampment that was the headquarters for the CCC's Dallas operations. A historical marker can be found at the location of the camp. Excerpt from Steven Butler's From Water Supply to Urban Oasis: A History of White Rock Lake Park (Richardson, Texas: Poor Scholar Publications, 2004: "The Dallas-area camp, designated SP-55-TX, was originally intended for Bachman Lake but in mid-July 1935 the National Park Service decided to place it at White Rock instead, "in order to get sanitary sewage and other facilities more suited to the project." On July 10, 1935, work on the barracks and other...

"In 1940, WPA workers completed this park in the heart of Dallas. Named for an early publisher of the Dallas Morning News, the plaza lives in infamy as the location of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963. There may be other "grassy knolls" in American parks, but none have gone down in history like the one in Dealey Plaza."  (money.howstuffworks.com) The park is built around a triple underpass in the heart of Dallas: "After the triple underpass was built, the remaining green space between the streets, and to the north of Elm and the south of Commerce, was...

Fair Park was expanded by New Deal agencies WPA, CCC, and PWA in 1936. The Dallas City Commission is considering to privatize Fair Park in 2018.

The oil-on-canvas mural "Texas of History," a ten-panel behemoth, each 30' x 80', was painted by Eugene Francis Savage as a New Deal project.

Civilian Conservation Corps Company 2896 resided at White Rock Lake in Dallas from 1935 to 1942. The CCC Company also built neighboring Flag Pole Hill between 1936 and 1937. Improvements constructed by the CCC included a picturesque overlook surmounted by a tall flag pole and accessible by sixteen wide stone steps from a newly-paved parking area. They also constructed an 81-foot long open-air picnic shelter, a small stone latrine, and an all-purpose stone building that was afterward used for many years to house transmitting equipment for city-owned radio station WRR. At the bottom of the hill, the CCC built a...

Juanita Jewel Craft Park was originally called Wahoo Park and was purchased by the City of Dallas in1924. A Works Progress Administration (WPA) community building, retaining wall, landscaping, planting, walks and other improvements were executed 1936-38. The park was renamed for civil rights activist, civic leader, and Dallas City Council member Craft in 1974.

In 1931, Edwin Kiest, an influential Dallas businessman, made a gift of 247 acres of land to the City of Dallas for a regional park as a memorial to his wife, Elizabeth Patterson Kiest, who had died in 1917. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built several stone structures in Kiest Park including stone gates at three entrances to the park, a stone picnic shelter and a stone field house. The WPA also built a formal garden at the heart of Kiest Park. A pergola was built at the head of the garden in 1934 with WPA money. It fell into ruin...

The site, originally developed in 1906 as an amusement park, was acquired by the City of Dallas in 1914. The park encompasses 44 acres and a large lake. Works Progress Administration (WPA) sponsored improvements included construction of a stone picnic shelter in 1938, roque court, retaining wall, paving, picnic units, a bridge, and extensive landscaping. Perhaps the most visible WPA features are the rose garden and pavilions, constructed 1940-1943. The pavilions and shelter were restored in 2009.

Arlington Hall is a two-thirds-size replica of Arlington House, General Robert E. Lee’s Virginia home. The City of Dallas and the Works Progress Administration completed the building in 1939. For years, it served as a popular spot for community events and weddings, but wear and tear and lack of funding led to the building’s decay. The Lee Park and Arlington Hall Conservancy, formed in 1995, raised more than $2.5 million in private funds to restore and expand Arlington Hall in 2003. Arlington Hall continues to serve the city as an event center.

"General Lee and Young Soldier" is a sculpture by Alexander Phimister Proctor that stands in Lee Park in Dallas, Texas. The Dallas Southern Memorial Association gave the statue to the City of Dallas in 1936. The Dallas Park Board provided a location for the statue and the Works Progress Administration built the base the statue stands on. A plaque on the base denotes it as W.P.A. Project No. 4051. The statue was removed in September 2017.

The Leonhardt Lagoon was constructed with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds in 1936. The lagoon named after philanthropist Dorothea Leonhardt and was built at the site of the Texas Centennial Exposition. "The man-made lagoon lies south of the Midway. It was constructed with funds from the WPA to serve as a peaceful, beautiful place to take a break from the bustle of the exposition exhibits. As part of the overall design, George Dahl placed it at the center of the civic section. Leonhardt Lagoon was surrounded by a science museum, an art museum, an aquarium, and a band shell. In 1981, Pat...

Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas was constructed in large part with federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. Text from the state historical marker reads: In 1937, the Dallas school board appointed a building committee to find land for a new high school for African Americans. The committee chose eleven acres at this location. Lincoln High School was one of the largest campuses in the city, with twenty classrooms, chemistry and physics laboratories, auditorium, cafeteria, and library in the main building. A federal Public Works Administration grant paid for nearly half of the construction cost. In January 1939, Lincoln High School opened...

"At the time of the Texas Centennial Exposition at Dallas in 1936 certain of the buildings constructed were made permanent, and one of these was the Museum of Natural History. The structure is two stories in height and 71 by 224 feet in plan. The spacious entrance lobby connects with numerous exhibition halls containing cases in which are shown specimens of the plant and animal life of Texas. The building is semifireproof. The frame is reinforced concrete and the exterior walls are stone. Texas shell stone is extensively used on the interior, with bases of marble...

The Oakland-Merlin Overpass is a 1,759 foot long overpass that currently carries Malcom X Blvd (formerly Oakland Ave.) over the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Railyard near downtown Dallas, Texas. The Texas Highway Department and the United States Bureau of Public Roads oversaw the construction of the bridge with funding from the federal Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The overpass originally separated the grade of Oakland Ave and Merlin St from the tracks of the Gulf Coast and Sante Fe Railway. Uvalde Construction co. built the bridge in 1937 using Works Progress Administration labor.

The WPA did extensive work in this Dallas park as part of "an extensive parks beautification program intended to make the city a showplace. For Reverchon, this meant the introduction of a series of stoneworks, including the floral amphitheater known as the Iris Bowl, a fountain entry and a picturesque bridge over Turtle Creek. The masterstroke of the project was Hillside Terrace, a trail network of meandering stone stairwells, lookouts and seating spaces that cling to the park’s bluff, providing shade, privacy and views. The paths and their furniture are all constructed of rough-cut Milsap stone that runs a spectrum from...

In 1937, a school was built in Rylie, Texas (now Dallas) to replace the former school that burned down the year before. An article published in 1937 in the Dallas Daily Times Herald, recounts the process by which federal funds were granted for the construction of the school: "Officials Puzzled When Second Okay for School WPA Grant Comes Through The board of trustees of Rylie common school district is well fixed for federal aid on construction of a new school house, unofficial reports from Washington indicated Wednesday. Hoke Smith, architect for county school projects aided by the Works Progress Administration, was unable to understand an...

This stone pavilion was constructed by the WPA in 1934-1936. After many years it was in danger of collapsing into a nearby creek, until the city recently moved the entire pavilion 25 feet to a more secure location.

Tenison Park is in the divide of East and West Grand Avenue. On the site there is a rock bathroom (in need or restoration), a rock trash container, and a small rock bridge, as well as rock-lined drainage ditches.

The historic Terminal Annex Federal Building in Dallas, Texas was constructed during the Great Depression with federal Treasury Department funds. The building, which houses examples of New Deal artwork inside, was constructed in 1936 and is still in use today.

The Terminal Annex Federal Building contains two oil on canvas murals by Peter Hurd: "Pioneer Home Builders" and “Airmail Over Texas.” They were painted in 1940-1941 with funding from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts. From an entry on the website Unvisited Dallas by Noah Jeppson: Soon after the Terminal Annex was completed, three murals were commissioned and a national design competition was held. From an entry field of 149 applicants regionalist painter Peter Hurd — who rose to national fame in the 1930s — won the anonymous competition (the winning designs were displayed with all other entries at the Dallas Museum...

Tietze Park is a 9-acre park in the City of Dallas acquired in 1924. At that time it was named Keith Park. Ten years later it was renamed Tietze Park, after W.R. Tietze, who was Superintendent of Parks for the city from 1896-1933. The rustic style stone pavilion at the center of the park is a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, built in 1934.

In 1939, the Works Progress Administration (WPA)began improvements at Turtle Creek Park in Dallas TX.  The project was one of many undertaken in the area by the WPA and other New Deal agencies. “Widespread park improvements costing $34,000 have been announced at Dallas, Texas,” a writer for Parks & Recreation reported in January of 1939. “Included in the developments will be a new South Dallas community center, a golf course for Negroes and additional work in Robert E. Lee Park and also on the White Rock beautification program.” Dallas’s Robert E. Lee Park was renamed Turtle Creek Park after a vote by...

The State of Texas chartered the Union Terminal Company on March 16, 1912. The mission of the company was to build a central terminal in Dallas for the seven railroads then serving the city. The company opened the Dallas Union Terminal in October 1916 and was also operating five miles of track within Dallas. At the peak of its usage, as many as eighty trains stopped each day at the station. In 1936, the Texas Highway Department with funding from the United States Bureau of Public Roads built a triple underpass to separate the grade of the Union Terminal Company track...

Original school erected in 1916. Under the auspices of the New Deal, the Public Works Administration [PWA) administered the School Building-Aid Program that provided funds for much-needed additions to the Adamson High School building in 1938. This project added wings on the east and west ends of the original building, extending the main hallways which provided a long-awaited art room on the first floor as well as a chemistry lab and choir suite. On the east end were a biology lab, physics lab, woodshop, basement facilities for the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), and a football locker room, so that student...

Construction on White Rock Lake began in 1910 in response to a water shortage in Dallas. The City of Dallas dammed White Rock Creek in 1911 and built a water processing plant. White Rock Lake was the city’s main source of drinking water until a bigger lake was built in Lewisville, Texas in 1929. The City of Dallas transferred ownership of the land surrounding White Rock Lake to the Park and Recreation Department. The Park and Recreation Department started developing the 1,254 acre White Rock Lake Park in 1930. One of the first projects was stone picnic tables. Next to these...

"The zoo was upgraded in the late 1930s, at an estimated cost of $100,000.00 with Federal Works Project Administration (WPA) labor and money and Texas Centennial bond money. An extensive system of concrete and natural stone bridges, park houses, winding walks, hillside stairways, and retaining walls along the creek banks were added. The WPA projects included new monkey cages, large animal dens and paddocks, and wild fowl cages. There was also a new building that served as both commissary offices and an entrance." (dallaszoo.com)