From SLO County courthouse to Paso Robles fire station, WPA had lasting local legacy
From the repurposed fire station that now serves as the Paso Robles Children’s Museum to the Civic Moderne-style San Luis Obispo County courthouse, buildings constructed by the Works Progress Administration can be seen throughout the Central Coast.
The WPA, a federal New Deal program that employed millions of jobseekers on public works projects in the 1930s and ’40s, was also responsible for many stonework projects in SLO County — from the limestone-lined culverts on the roads between Arroyo Grande and San Luis Obispo to retaining walls around Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa made with rocks from Bishop Peak.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, there were few safety nets to help cushion the blow.
Nationally, unemployment rose above 20%. More than 5,000 banks in the United States failed.
President Herbert Hoover’s anemic response to the crisis emboldened extremists who said democracy was a failure.
In Italy and Germany, fascists rose to power, and similar factions tried to make a run in the United States.
The pressure to defend democracy fell to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was sworn in as president in March 1933.
One of his most ambitious and far-reaching efforts was the creation of the WPA via executive order in May 1935.
The agency operated for eight years, becoming obsolete when labor was needed in industries supporting U.S. military interests in World War II.
The August 9. 1939, Telegram-Tribune reported that 660 men and women were employed locally by the agency.
According to the 1940 U.S. Census, there were 33,246 residents living in San Luis Obispo County, including children and retired people. That means almost 2% of all county residents were employed by the WPA.
Congress did not want the program to be permanent, so after 18 months of continuous service, workers were furloughed for a minimum of 30 days.
About 135 local men and 20 local women, the latter working on sewing projects, were being let go in SLO County in 1939.
Projects underway in San Luis Obispo that year included a San Luis Obispo city reservoir, streets, sewer, tuberculosis sanitarium and forestry camp, now Cal Fire.
The firehouse in Paso Robles was a project site, along with a cemetery.
So were a public restroom at Avila Beach and improvements at Arroyo Grande High School.
Among the roads constructed by the WPA was Calf Canyon Road, which would become Highway 58. It still has several WPA stone culverts.
At one point that year, the Telegram-Tribune editorialized that the WPA needed to take care to hire diligent workers and not drones.
However, it would be hard to find another federal program with such visible lasting legacy.
Many WPA projects stand today, though some of those old road projects suffered were damaged in recent heavy rains.
San Luis Obispo County public infrastructure suffered more than $43 million in storm damage costs in January.
