Texas Sites

A beautiful, 16 panel mural titled “San Antonio’s Importance in History” adorns the walls of the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building (formerly the main U.S. Post Office) in downtown San Antonio Texas. The mural was painted by Howard Cook between the years of 1937 and 1939 using the fresco technique (fresco is the process of painting directly on fresh, wet plaster). Cost of the mural was $12,000. Each panel represents a different period in San Antonio’s rich history from the arrival of the conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries to the great cattle drives and cotton businesses of the early 1900’s. Mr....

The historic federal courthouse and former post office in Tyler was built with Treasury Department funds in 1933. The building, located at the northeast corner of W. Ferguson St. and N. Bois D'Arc Ave. has since been expanded to the east.

The Works Progress Administration built the Ferris School between 1938 and 1940 under official project number 65-1-66-287. The brick building had 33 rooms. The former school is currently the Ferris Independent School District Administrative Services building.

The Firehouse in the newspaper article below still stands, and is in fact the current Llano City Hall. Excerpt from The Llano News, 05 Dec 1940: "Specifications for the building were prepared by W. A. Burton, Llano architect and engineer. The building is a two- story of rock-face ashlar construction. The ground floor provided space for four fire trucks, a dressing room and bath for the firemen and a large office which served as a meeting place for the city council and the city's business. Upstairs there was a large combined assembly room and recreational hall for the members of the Llano Volunteer...

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built the Central Fire Headquarters in 1938. The facility provided offices for the Fire Chief and other officers. It also served as San Antonio Fire Station #1 from 1938 until 2011, and is currently home to the San Antonio Fire Museum.

Construction through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began in 1935 with 18" stone quarried from a nearby ranch and was completed in 1937. This building housed the Volunteer Fire Department downstairs and City Hall upstairs until the 1970's. As of 2017 "the walls are solid and still standing but interior walls, floors, and roof are in great disrepair." The building was demolished on August 19, 2020.

The Works Progress Administration built a fire station in Mason, circa 1939. Rubble Masonry Building with brick trim. One large three truck room. 1 equipment room. 1 shower room. 2 rest rooms. Upstairs 4 rooms, 1 rest room. Building has a reinforced concrete foundation and concrete floors. This building is now Mason County Law Enforcement Center. It sits on the corner of the Mason County Courthouse lawn.

Fire Station No. 14 of Fort Worth, Texas was constructed in 1938-39 under the PWA. The architect was Preston M. Geren and the Sr. Contractor was Quisle and Andrews. The building now serves as a YWCA Child Care-Community Center.

The Brenham Fire Department established Fireman's Park in 1884.The Fire Department gave the park to the City of Brenham in 1917 "for cancellation of the department's indebtedness to the city." The Works Progress Administration made improvements to the park consisting of a two-story hut, a kitchen, a beer garden, an American Legion Hall and a sixteen-sided building that houses an antique carousel.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) conducted $1,375 in improvement work on the "federal fish hatchery" in San Angelo, Texas. Living New Deal believes this to be what became known as Fish Hatchery No. 1, a property now managed by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Charles Cruz: "No. 1 was located at the southern end of town near the Goodfellow AFB. It was constructed in 1929 and was one of the first state-run hatcheries built in Texas, producing walleye, channel catfish, largemouth bass and sunfish. The hatchery ceased operation in the late 1980s, and reopened in the early 1990s only to...

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...

The beautiful native-stone, rock veneer hospital was opened early in 1941. A county-sponsored, WPA project, it was one of the most modern and best equipped in this section of the country when it opened. The hospital closed in the 1960s. Today it is the home of the Rolling Plains Management Corporation. Several Texas WPA Projects Approved By the President including Crowell, Foard county, construct county hospital and Improve adjacent grounds, $14,254.

NYA plaque found at entrance of roadside park on TX-6 in Foard County, approximately 3.3 miles south of Crowell. Found a unique octagonal picnic table, a regular picnic table, and rock around garden at base of trees.

The index card text: 7' rock masonry fence around football field. Rock masonry stands with timber seats. Ticket office rock masonry with concrete floor. Playing field - grading - fills - drainage and sodding. Replace lighting system from old location. The 7' fence around the field and two ticket offices (one at each entrance) still exist. The stands have been replaced with new metal ones. The lighting system also appears newer.

"Jones County, Hamlin - Construct football and baseball fieds, grandstands and bleachers, rock walls and gravel drives in city park; federal funds, $16,706; sponsor's funds $5,504; workers 48."

"NYA Projects in Area Approved. One hundred boys and young men are to be employes in five counties. Allotment was $1,024 per month, and the jobs are expected to last from three to six months. Projects approved and allotments made with work starting August 5, are: Memphis, Hall County, 20 boys on a school project, including a grandstand and football field."

From the city of Somerville website: "A native stone gymnasium and football stadium with seating and fence were built for the Somerville Independent School District by the WPA during the Depression and finished by 1939 ." Text from the state historical marker at the stadium reads: "Emerging from the Great depression, the Somerville School Board partnered with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to build a football stadium. Known as 'The Rock,' the stadium was designed by Travis Broesche in the rustic style of architecture, using native stone and petrified wood. It was completed in 1940. A crew of around 100 local...

"Forney's first schoolhouse was built here about 1868, and its first general store was built nearby by pioneer settler John C. McKellar in 1871. This building was erected by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1938-39. Designed by WPA architect Hoke Smith, the Spanish Colonial revival style structure features a tile roof, multi-light windows, buff brick, and wrought iron and cast stone details. A high school was housed here until 1974 and a middle school until 1993." The school became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1994. The building is still standing.

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...

The federal Works Progress Administration worked to develop Fort Bliss. El Paso Herald-Post: "Another $50,000 in WPA funds, ... will be used to hire labor to paint and repair Ft. Bliss buildings, to build roads, and other improvements on the reservation."

The federal Works Progress Administration played a crucial role in the early development of Fort Bliss National Cemetery. NPS.gov: "Labor hired for the cemetery and through the WPA constructed the national cemetery.  The New Deal labor program, begun in 1935, primarily completed small-scale new construction, rehabilitation, and/or landscape improvement projects that could be completed in a year or less.  In addition to the initial cemetery appropriations in excess of  $44,000, the cemetery received a  second $25,000 WPA project,  of which approximately $22,000 paid for labor and $3,000 for  supplies. ... By October 1939, the request for appropriations resulted in another $75,000...

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...

The 3803 Junior White Company was established in Texas Jan. 5, 1938. They worked for three years prior to the program's discontinuance developing the park's campground, roads, and completing a partial reconstruction of the fort. The fort's bakery was one of the buildings reconstructed. The camp was abandoned in 1941 due to World War II.      

Works Progress Administration (WPA) laborers "built a sandstone wall around the entire fort grounds and today the boundary demarcates the Fort McIntosh Historic District."

A historical marker explains the CCC's role in developing the Fort Parker State Park: "In August 1935, construction of a state park began here on the former town site of Springfield under the direction of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The group assigned to build Fort Parker State Park was Company 3807(C), an African American CCC Camp. From 1935 to 1942, the park company constructed park buildings, roads and facilities, erected a dam across the Navasota River, and reconstructed old Fort Parker. Located nearby, old Fort Parker was rebuilt in preparation for a Texas Centennial observance in 1936, and was the first...

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 1811 arrived in Mineral Wells in June 1933 to begin work on project SP-8, a state park that never was completed and transferred to the state. The company divided its time between the park and improvements to facilities at nearby Camp Wolters. The CCC built several rock buildings at Camp Wolters, of which only one survives according to the interpretive sign near the building. The company left Mineral Wells in January 1934. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was active at the camp from 1938 to 1940. The most visible remnant of the WPA work is the...

The Fort Worth Botanic Garden had its origins in 1912 when the park board purchased a tract of land southwest of Trinity Park and named it Rock Springs Park. In his 1909 park master plan for Fort Worth, landscape architect George E. Kessler recommended that the city acquire the parcel because of its natural flowing springs and dense stand of native trees. The park remained largely unimproved until 1929 when work began on the creation of a lagoon and an arboretum under the direction of landscape architect S. Herbert Hare and Raymond C. Morrison, the city’s forester. In 1930 Hare and...

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) is primarily responsible for building the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge (FWNC&R) which is located just inside the city limits of Fort Worth, TX. CCC Company 1816, Lake Worth Camp SP-31-T served in this area from 1934-1938. It's projects planned and supervised by the National Park Service included roads, bridges, bridle paths, nature trails, picnic areas and stone shelter houses.

The Works Progress Administratio built several cages and exhibits at the Fort Worth city zoo.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) put more than 100 men to work developing Foster Park on Spring Creek southwest of San Angelo. The 10-acre park received $11,000 in improvements made possible by the CWA. In Feb. 1934 the San Angelo Morning Times noted that work was being "completed rapidly." It is probable that the CWA constructed many of the stone facilities that still serve the park today, including picnic benches, fireplaces, and a sizable shelter.

Fredericksburg received a WPA grant of $4,954 in 1939 to improve the campus and athletic field at the Fredericksburg Public School (now Fredericksburg Middle School). The school agreed to a dollar-for-dollar match and the seniors of 1938 donated $200 from their yearbook fund to help complete the project. The native flagstone wall in front of the school (Travis Street) would be dedicated to them. Other improvements were an arch built over the east entrance and re-paving of the driveway. The athletic field would have drainage enhancements and new sod, a fifty-inch-high fence built along College Street, a cinder tract around the...

Galveston Causeway "carries traffic over Galveston Bay and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The original causeway was built in 1912 and carried both rail and auto traffic. The auto traffic was transferred to new causeways built to the west" during the late 1930s, "leaving the original bridge for rail traffic." The Depression-era structure was constructed as a Public Works Administration (P.W.A.) project from 1936 to 1938. The auto bridges have since been replaced and demolished. PWA Project No. Tex. 1968-R

The Works Progress Administration completed improvements to the Galveston State Psychopathic Hospital Improvements in Galveston TX. According to a Waxahachie Daily Light, 1938, federal funds sponsored the following improvements work at the Galveston State Psychopathic Hospital: "mprove drives on grounds of Galveston State Psychopathic Hospital, and install drainage lines; Federal funds $2,027; sponsor's funds $1,914; workers 33." According to the Asylum Projects database: "The Marvin Graves Building was constructed in 1931 as the State Psychopathic Hospital and enlarged in 1936. Although located on the UTMB campus, it was administered independently of the school. Because of heavy damage from a 1943 hurricane, the state...

The first addition to Garland High School (originally built 1919) was added with financial and labor assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1938-1940.

A Texas historical marker erected in the park in 2007 explains the CCC's involvement in the park's development as follows: "CCC Company 879 began its work at Camp SP-42-T (Garner State Park) in April 1935. During the first phase of development (1935-37), construction included the main entrance portal and road, and the keeper’s lodge. In 1937, the CCC began construction on the heart of the new park, the combination building, known as the Pavilion, and a dance floor, on a high bluff near the Frio River. The building architecture, known as NPS (National Park Service) Rustic, utilized native limestone and wood...

The school is a brick building erected in 1924. There is a rubble rock retaining wall on two sides and a rubble rock stairway. An article entitled "Smith County WPA Projects Get Approval" from Tyler (Texas) Daily Courier Times dated 8/5/1935. "One project of considerable interest to Tyler provides for the landscaping and improvements of the Gary school ground on South Chilton, at approximate cost of $10,000 to $12,000. The plans provide for making the grounds one of the most beautiful in Texas, according to Superintendent J.M. Hodges. They call for a retaining wall around sections washed away, shrubbery around the...

The Works Progress Administration built the City Hall and the Auditorium building in Gatesville, between 1935 and 1937.

The Works Progress Administration built the gazebo in downtown Cooper between 1938 and 1940 as documented by a plaque on the gazebo.

For two years, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), under the leadership of University of Texas at Austin archaeologists, excavated an area known as the George C. Davis Site (41CE19). The site yielded artifacts from the Caddoan Mississippian culture that existed there from 800 A.D. to 1300 A.D. The archaeologists also found artifacts from the Spanish colonial era in Texas (1690-1821 A.D.) as the site was along the El Camino Real de los Tejas. The artifacts are held by the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. The official WPA project number was 65-1-66-2594. The George C. Davis...

Serious discussion about building a new women's dormitory at Stephen F. Austin began immediately after the programs of the New Deal made the project feasible. The Board of Regents authorized the dorm's construction in July 1936. It took another two years before the appropriations for the women’s dormitory came through. The building was constructed with Public Works Administration funds. Construction started on September 6, 1938 under the supervision of architects Shirley Simon of Henderson and Hal Tucker of Nacogdoches. The building is named for Miss Eleanor H. Gibbs, one of SFA’s favorite members of the original faculty and Head of the...