Looking Back at the WPA in Arkansas

To stimulate a national economy ravaged by the Great Depression, during the eight years of its existence, 8.5 million people received WPA paychecks.

Maybe you've never heard of the WPA. If not, you should have.

The WPA in Arkansas began July 1935. It came in the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration as relief programs and New Deal legislation which created agencies such as Public Works Administration which became Works Project Administration. This agency employed 8.5 million in 3,000 counties and this county was included.

St. Francis County received $5 million from this program to repair and build. Every state required a state sponsor or local to pay part of the cost.

Arkansas retained William R. Dyess until torn apart in a plane crash on January 1936 at Goodwin.

Floyd Sharp became state administrator until its close in 1943.

As part of the Federal writers projects, former historians, writers and other professionals researched and wrote “Arkansas: A Guide to the State (1941).” Others interviewed former slaves living in the state for a national oral history project known as the “Slave Narratives.”

All these were WPA projects which produced far more (756) of these valuable histories than any other state.

Another project was the Historical and Cultural Records Inventory.

The Forrest City Library was built in 1939 at a cost of $25,000. Public Works Administration funded 45% with the remainder financed by local bonds with a 20-year maturity. The building was designed by the Little Rock firm of Sanders & Ginocchio. It was the first purpose built public library in the city.

The second building is the Forrest City Hall, sometimes known as the Municipal Building, was built in 1938-39. The PWA provided $9,676 and the total cost was $22,151.

We are lucky to still have these two buildings that are deeply rooted in Arkansas history. Many buildings from this time are neglected and torn down to make way for modernization.

Both buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places in St. Francis County, with a total of 15 in all.

We should all want to preserve history, especially in our own backyard because you never know what you are going to learn just by looking back.