• Disposal Plant (former) - Newcastle TX
    Newcastle was approved 2/28/1934 for construction of a sanitation disposal plant by the PWA. The project was awarded 8/30/1934 and work started 12/10/1934. The project was funded with a loan of $24,500, grant of $9,322, for a total expenditure of $33,444 when the project was completed 6/13/1935. The location of the project is presently unknown to Living New Deal.
  • Fort Belknap Restoration - Newcastle TX
    Fort Belknap was originally constructed in 1851 as one of the frontier defense posts in Young County, Texas. It was abandoned in 1859, and over the years, dismantled for the materials, with the exception of two buildings (National Park Service). In 1936, the State of Texas, with supplemental money from the Federal government through the WPA program, reconstructed buildings on the original foundations as part of the Centennial celebration (commemorative plaque on entrance gates, National Historic Landmark, National Park Service). The corn storage building was partially standing, and the powder magazine was still intact. The corn storage building (now used as...
  • High School Gymnasium (demolished) - Newcastle TX
    On January 28, 1936, consideration was given to building a gym as a WPA project at Newcastle.  On February 2, 1936, the school board committed a matching $3, 800 to build the gym.  Local WPA employee A. C. Duckett was assigned as the project superintendent. The gym was demolished in 1993.  Alumni erected a pavilion in its location, and a monument to the gym, although they incorrectly list the construction date as 1931.  Rocks from the old gym building were preserved in the sidewalk leading to the pavilion.  The 1936 date is consistent with Mr. Wooldridge’s account of the construction, also...
  • Newcastle Roadside Park - Newcastle TX
    Roadside picnic areas were created by the National Youth Administration in cooperation with the Texas Highway Department. Lyndon Baines Johnson was the first director of the Texas branch of NYA from 1935-37. Tables and benches were built of local materials, usually stone with concrete slab tops. The Newcastle park, constructed adjacent to the lake was part of the development of roadside parks in anticipation of the tourists and visitors to Texas for the 1936 Texas Centennial celebration. The original purpose was "to provide cool shade alongside tortuous highways navigated by Depression-era cars without air-conditioning" (Barnes, 2011). Only 41 parks remain...