WPA 1941

The Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 to the Work Projects Administration or WPA) was a government agency established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fight the ravages of the Great Depression. It put millions of people to work on projects designed to improve the nation's infrastructrue in almost every locality in the United States.

In Madera, the WPA employed crews to upgrade the city's pavements during 1941. Many of these pavements are still used today in the downtown area. If you look closely, you will see the WPA stamps.

   
Photographs taken on Fourth Street, Madera in 2008.

In 1940, the City of Chowchilla gave three lots (4,5, and 6 of Block 88) to Madera County for the purpose of building a library. Madera County contributed $5400 toward a total buiding cost of $15,800.1 The library, built by the WPA, was made of adobe brick, and had a basement. It is reputed to be the last structure built by the agency in Madera County. The library opened to the public on 1 August 1941. It closed on 1 February 2003, and was replaced by a new library on Kings Avenue.

The "Old Library" located at 612 W Robertson Boulevard, Chowchilla. Photographs taken 2003.

In 1939, California : a guide to the Golden State (American Guide Series) was compiled and written by the Federal Writer's Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of California. It briefly describes Madera County on page 444, cited below:

Chowchilla, 125.2 m. [miles from Sacramento] (240 alt., 847 pop.), is in a district of dairying, hog and poultry raising, cotton, fruit, and grain growing. In the city are cotton gins, creameries, concrete pipe factories, and a cotton-seed oil mill. The Chowchilla River is referred to locally as the region's Mason and Dixon Line ; legend has it that Union soldiers marching south from Stockton during the Civil War were ordered to load their guns when they reached it.

US 99 passes through olive groves and apricot orchards to Berenda, 133.6 m. (255 alt.), a small collection of frame dwellings grouped about the characteristically tan-gray Southern Pacific railroad station. Beyond the Madera County Fairgrouds and Race Track, 139.4 m., it spans the Fresno River.

Madera, 140.4 m. (272 alt., 4,655 pop.), seat of Madera County, was laid out in 1876 by the California Lumber Company. Besides lumber, it produces great quantities of sweet wine. In October Maderans celebrate Old Timers' Day.

1 New Notes of California Libraries (36) 1941, p. 223.