Titus County, Texas History - The Works Progress Administration

Mount Pleasant Daily Times

Thursday Evening, July 25, 1935

Officials of WPA Investigating Local Projects

Marshall D. Barnett, director of District One of the Works Progress Administration in Texas, with headquarters at Marshall and J. B. McHale spent Wednesday afternoon in Mt. Pleasant conferring with county, city and school officials regarding projects for Titus County.

They are making a survey of this district for tentative projects which may be used in absorbing all possible employables who have been taken from relief rolls and certified to the United States Employment Service.

The general' policy of' the WPA will be to establish and work on projects of lasting nature which will be of direct benefit to the communities where located. All service projects, such as sewing rooms and canneries, will also be taken over by the WPA.

Political subdivisions of the county are requested to submit projects at once so that they may have early consideration and proper plans drawn up for them.

The objective of the program is to put as many men as possible to work at projects which will be of use to the public in the future, and not the temporary ones which gave employment the past two years.

There are a number of projects which Titus County might present for consideration, such as lateral roads, school buildings, gymnasiums, street improvements, and Mt. Pleasant might even include a filtration plant for the city lake.

Mt. Pleasant Daily Times, Mt. Pleasant, Texas

Friday, November 19, 1936

WPA APPROVES MT. PLEASANT'S NEW WATER PROJECT

Strengthening of Dam at City Lake Included With Program

Extension of Water Mains Prime Purpose

$60,000

HUGE SUM APPROPRIATED FOR EXTENSIVE WORK

Announcement was made at San Antonio Thursday by H. P. Drought, State Works Progress Administrator, that a project submitted by the City of Mr. Pleasant several months ago asking for Federal funds for the extension of water mains in this city has been approved and that the money will be appropriated out of a total of $136,033, an amount that has been set aside for the operation of sixteen WPA projects over the State.

Among the civic public improvement projects authorized, other than the one here, are: Sanitary sewer system at Dallas; paving market place at Cleburne; improving water mains at Palestine; surfacing Corpus Christi streets; construction of a canning plant at Camp Wood, and additions to sewer disposal plant at Laredo.

To be included in the water main project here will also be improvements on the dam at the City Lake.

These two projects that were approved Thursday were sent in at the same time that the City submitted the sewer extension project but for some reason their approval was delayed. The sever extensions were given their official OK several weeks ago, and material is already on hand with work probably to begin the early part of next week.

All three projects will represent an expenditure of approximately $60,000 in the county during a period of the next ten months. Of the $60,000 Mt. Pleasant herself will be required to put up only a very small portion of the amount, and arrangements have already been made to take care of the end of it.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a government program created by Presidential order on May 6, 1935. The WPA was created to provide jobs and income for workers idled by the Great Depression by putting them back to work on public works projects. While the Civilian Conservation Corps was primarily involved in soil erosion and agricultural projects, the WPA performed projects like laying sidewalks and roadways, erecting buildings, and building waterworks. In addition to manual labor jobs in construction and other industries, the WPA also created white-collar jobs and helped workers in the performing and fine arts.

The WPA program, like many of today's government programs, required local funding in addition to government grants. Some WPA projects required matching funds, but the local government paid a very small percentage of the cost of most WPA projects, with the federal government paying the largest share.

Locally, the WPA built the football field on West First Street by adding about 4' of fill dirt to the existing land to keep it from flooding. They also constructed the rock bleachers at the football field, lined the creek running through it with rock all the way to West Alabama Street, and laid sidewalks along what is now North Edwards Avenue. They lowered sidewalks in the downtown area, which were once very high, and built the Maple Springs school.

The WPA helped build Town Lake on U.S. Highway 271 N. Business, they built the municipal golf course on the west side of the lake, built the Talco football stadium, the Cookville school gym, laid water and sewer lines in Mt. Pleasant, and did many other worthwhile public projects in Titus County.

According to Mr. Billy Hammonds, much of the rock used in the various projects was obtained in the bottoms on Highway 49 East near the late Dick Justiss' property.

The WPA, unlike the CCC which was well received by the public, had many critics. Since foremen on a government project designed to maintain employment couldn't influence worker productivity by demotion or termination, WPA projects sometimes slowed to a crawl. Others felt that the WPA did jobs that people did not want done and wasted taxpayer money.

In spite of criticism, the WPA did many good things and some were quite efficient at times.

WPA programs ended by 1943 when employment improved as a result of World War II.