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Another Interesting Sunday Article

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Anonymous

Guest
Interesting article about the old Depression program that touched so much across this state- and the country---which I've heard several oldtimers mention they think may be the direction the country is again heading before we get out of the current/impending financial crisis....


Traces of New Deal remain in Montana
By DONNA HEALY
Of The Gazette Staff

To pull the United States out of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the New Deal in the early 1930s, leading Congress to create an alphabet soup of federal relief programs.

Historians still debate the effect of those programs, but traces of the New Deal's legacy pepper Montana's landscape.

In Eastern Montana, years of drought and hardship preceded the Depression, and, by 1935, almost a fourth of the state's population was dependent on some form of federal, state or county relief assistance.

Americans hungry for jobs went to work building highways, bridges and schools; improving parks; and painting murals. In Eastern Montana, Fort Peck Dam stands out as the most prominent symbol of the era. But plenty of less-obvious landmarks - from scenic trails to horse barns -remain in use on the 75th anniversary of the New Deal.

In Yellowstone County, the New Deal funded projects large and small. Money from the Public Works Administration helped build Billings' City Hall in 1940. At Pioneer Park, a Works Progress Administration crew created tennis courts north of the wading pool in 1935.

WPA projects seemed to start, stop and stumble across the county.

A 1936 article in The Billings Gazette lambasted the WPA for glaring mismanagement and missed deadlines.

The same year the WPA crew worked on the tennis courts, they dug three lily ponds along the creek through Pioneer Park. The beautification project cost $3,537, with the city picking up just $137 of the total cost. But another $300 had to be spent by the park board in 1936, to hire a "keeper of the ponds" to chase away Billings youths using the lily ponds as wading pools.

While the lily ponds have vanished, other New Deal projects remain in daily use.

Practically every two-lane highway in Eastern Montana was built with the help of WPA funds, said Jon Axline, a historian with Montana's Department of Transportation.

A prime example around Billings is the Old Hardin Highway, which was improved in the 1930s, Axline said. The road climbs out of Lockwood, clinging to the hillside in a series of tight curves.

In the 1930s, roads were built to fit the landscape. The interstate highway took the opposite approach, molding the landscape to fit the road's design.

Other examples include Highway 87, from Billings to Roundup, and the old Frontage Road, south of the interstate between Billings and Laurel.

In Billings, WPA work crews substantially re-engineered Zimmerman Trail, which was originally hacked into the Rimrocks in 1890 by brothers Joseph and Frank Zimmerman. The WPA crew of 100 to 150 laborers started the project in 1939 with the intention of finishing in four months. The work took at least seven months.

The WPA also funded the Mossmain railroad overpass at the East Laurel exit. The design was meant to be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional, Axline said.

The bridgework remains pleasing to the eye, despite the removal of its decorative concrete guard rails, he said.

The far more substantial East Bridge on the Yellowstone River, which connects Lockwood and Billings, was built with WPA funds in 1935 and served for 58 years before it was replaced in 1993.

About 800 small timber bridges from the '30s remain in use in Montana.

Bolstered by the New Deal, the Montana Highway Department had funds for more than just roads and bridges.

After amateur archaeologists discovered the Pictograph Caves in 1937, WPA funds controlled by the highway department combined with the efforts of local organizations to buy the site, excavate the caves and build a tiny museum on the grounds to attract visitors.

Vandals burned the museum to the ground in 1945, but, in August, the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department plans to start construction on a new visitor center.

During the mid-1930s, the highway department embarked on ambitious plans to draw tourists to the state.

The first official Montana highway map came out in 1934, followed by wooden highway historical markers, roadside picnic areas, information centers and ports of entry stations.

Bob Fletcher, the department's plans engineer at the time, envisioned a chain of roadside museums across Montana on Highway 2 and Highway 10. Fletcher, described by Axline as the father of Montana's modern tourism program, saw the museums as joint efforts between the highway department and local chambers of commerce.

Only two museum buildings were actually built, one near the fairgrounds in Billings and one in Laurel.

The tiny museum in Billings lay across from the fairgrounds along Highway 87. Museum staff came from the National Youth Administration, a New Deal youth employment program. The state highway provided some exhibits.

"I don't know what was in it," Axline said. "It's still a big mystery. I would like to find photos or info on what the exhibits were like."

WPA crews also worked on projects on the grounds of what is now MetraPark. Three horse barns built by the WPA are still in use at the fairgrounds.

In Laurel, the two-room museum built by the highway department contained both museum exhibits and the city's police department. The log building in Fireman's Park now houses Laurel's Chamber of Commerce.

During the summer, the museum became a stopping spot for motorists on their way to Yellowstone National Park over the newly opened Beartooth Highway. Tourists could view stone tools from Pictograph Caves, dioramas done by a highway department graphic artist, fossils, dinosaur bones and a large mounted bison head.

Max Big Man, a Crow tribal member, was the Laurel museum's caretaker. In summer, he and his family lived in two tepees on the grounds, gave talks to tourists and did demonstrations on Plains Indian life.

Nearby was a caged black bear named Susie. Big Man's tepee sat between the building and the railroad tracks, said Gay Easton, who first served on Laurel's City Council in 1974 and has been on the council continuously since 1990.

"I remember the bear being there," said Easton, who has helped students document Laurel's history for the upcoming Centennial celebration this summer.

"I have a picture that showed part of the tepee and the gazebo. It's tucked away someplace," he said.

After the United States entered World War II, federal funding for the museum in Laurel and other highway projects dried up. The building served as Laurel's police station until 1959 and also as a place for the Retired Men's Club to play cards.

New Deal programs funded other civic improvements around Laurel, including the gymnasium of the old Laurel High, which is now part of the old middle school on Colorado Avenue, Easton said.

Along the Yellowstone River, the Civilian Conservation Corps put up the buildings at Laurel's Riverside Park as a place for workers to stay. The site later housed World War II POWs who supplied labor for the surrounding farms.

Six of those log cabins were moved away from the park to the east end of Laurel, where they still remain, Easton said.

New Deal programs put artists to work as well as laborers and construction workers. Six Montana post offices, including the Downtown Post Office in Billings, gained murals commissioned by the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts.

The Billings mural of a cattle drive rises above the doorway of what was once the postmaster's office on the east side of the building's lobby. The scene shows a cowboy crouched down by his horse. While he smokes a cigarette, he watches a herd of longhorn steers make its way up out of the valley.

A glass partition partially obscures the mural, which was painted by Great Falls artist Leo Beaulaurier.

J. K. Ralston painted the post office mural in Sidney, according a 2003 article in Montana: the Magazine of Western History written by Elizabeth Mentzer.

Along with civic landmarks, the WPA was also responsible for erecting some less-long-lasting structures across Eastern Montana, including the construction in 1935 of 1,022 outhouses in the 21 counties that made up the Billings district.

Full Article and pictures:

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/06/01/features/magazine/18-newdeal.txt
 
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Anonymous

Guest
hopalong said:
Gloom and Doom. Look out the sky is falling.

If you talk those old folks that had farms and ranchs, or their kids now- and were doing good until the dirty thirtys hit- and who ended up giving them back to the banks or the government- and moving into tarpaper shacks in Wheeler, or New Deal, Park Grove, or Square Deal Mt. to work for $1.00 a day wages on Fort Peck Dam-- you would understand what gloom and doom is- and how it can come about.....

A lot of folks grandparents, parents, and relatives on here probably worked for or were involved in the WPA programs......Next to- but better than the soup lines....And they left a lasting effect upon this state which can be seen in almost every fairground in the state.......
 

Clarencen

Well-known member
I don't know OT. The PWA and the WPA did a lot of good things for the country some are still visible evn today, but they sort of went against the grain of most people's beliefs.
Sometime I want to write down some of the happenings during my lifetime, and the depression did have a bearing on it. How my parents delt with the depression. the dust bowl years, and the recovery period aftewards has effected my attitides and beliefs.
From what research I hve done, I found the low point of the depression was about the middle of 1933, I was only 4 years old at that time so do not remember a lot about it.
Even today those who study thedepression have different explainations of it's cause. This is partly because there are several different theories of how the economy should work for prosparity. Some believed then, and still do today that a large supply of goods and produce leads to better times. Prices then are lower and there are more buying. Some believed that low wages made more jobs affordable, so there would be workers and more people who could buy. These people opposed unions and set wage rates. Other theories were to put more money into the economy even with with unbalanced budgets would stimulate the economy.

I have looked first at the so called roaring 20's. They were not as grand as people were led to believe. The war to end warswas a thing of the past but there were trouble spots. Farm income was low and wages for the working man was low. But credit was available to buy the many new things that were being produced. People lived high. The stock market crash did not cause the depression, but it lite the fuse. Only a small percent of the population had invested in the stock market. Investers and banks lost money though. The led to panic as people lost confidence in the economy.
Hoover didn't cause the depression, he may not have did the right things to stop it though. Most people hated Hoover, my Dad didn't like him: maybe not so much because of his policies as the fact that during the 1928 election campaign the Republicans tried to smear and attack the Catholic religion. Ther would have been a depression even if Al Smith would have been elected, his policies were not that much different than Hoovers. That was to keep spending in check and to help the big businesses so they could produce more and could produce more cheaply, this was expected to filter down and benifit all.
Roosevelt saw it the other way. People needed money in order to buy, there was no need to produce more if no one could buy.
I do remember the WPA. When we would go to town, we would see the road workers. Many worked single handed although some worked with teams. It was always said they just leaned on there shovels really not much road could be built with the shovel in 1934. It seemed to me that most people I knew held the WPA worked to some disdain, considering them the never do wells. By the fall of 1936 all this changed, these people found themselves working on WPA. Only a handfull of the families in my community got along without being a part of it.
Roosevelt's programs reduced unimployment from 25% to 15% by 1935.
After the 1936 election, the conservative side of the Democrat party got more power. There were only a few Republicans left in Congress, They thought that Roosevelt's policies were to costly. Although some of the WPA programs continued, they favored outright grant to the poor and unemployed. Unemployment shot back up to 19%. We didn't really realize that here on the farm though.
When World War II started the US became the principle supplier and financer of the war. This ended the depression
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Thanks Clarence...Locally the "saviour" of this area was the building of Fort Peck Dam--many homesteaders who were losing their land went to work there- as well as people from all over the country....
My Dad and Uncle both worked there- and their earnings helped keep the rest of the family going....

They talk about our country being Boom to Bust-- Boomed with the railroad coming in- which brought lots of homesteaders to settle it--then Busted with the dustbowl and times of the 20's, 30's- but Boomed again with the building of the Dam-- which after completion leveled out until we got another Boom with the building of Glasgow AFB in the late 50's- which closed in the early 70's- causing another bust...CRP and NAFTA caused another bust for the area in the 90's....Everyone still waiting for what the next BOOM will be.....
 

mrj

Well-known member
Clarence, I enjoyed your comment on the depression. Sounds so much like my mother-in-law said, with the exception that those who went into govt programs in this area were not looked down upon.

She firmly believed, as did a few others, that the homestead act set people up for failure because even then, no one could make a living on that amount of land. Those who had gone into homesteading financially stable, or had excellent luck with weather and crops, and were able to buy out those who chose not to stay were the ones who succeeded and stayed and built communities.

Those homesteading debacles and the financial panics may have had as much to do with the depression in farm country as the drought, is what family experience has taught me.

Maybe the 'easy living', good times of the 1920's encouraged people to set themselves up for failures, too. It seems to me some people came out of those hard times believing they had to always scrimp and save for a 'rainy day' (drought may have been more accurate!) and others who believed they might as well spend and enjoy it while they had it because it wouldn't last forever and the truly 'good times' probably would never come. Add the easy money of loans and todays' credit cards, and no wonder we have personal debt problems in this country.

Still, I don't believe the national picture is so grim as some paint it for political gain. We are producing a phenomenal amount of goods, and 'good' for the entire world with that 25% of the fuel some like to blame us for using in the USA. Never forget that good that is done for the entire world by this nation..........as well as the number of people in our own country who do not have to work for their living because they are living off our tax dollars!

mrj
 

I Luv Herfrds

Well-known member
Rather interesting read there OT. They did forget Billings Senior High School was built by the CCC. There is a plaque to the left just as you walk in the front doors of the school. I remember it from going there for 4 years.

I remember the stories told to me by both my mother and father in law about the Depression and what happened to their families and what they did to survive.
 

Clarencen

Well-known member
Last spring, I read the book The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. He tells about the dust bowl days in the High Plains. While it seems part of his motive for writing was to put down the plains and return it to the buffalo, he does point out how the land was misunderstood and misused. He also points out our boom and bust mentality, often amplified by government policy.

The homestead act inacted partly because of war, brought people into submarginal land in he first place. Then the food shortages in Europe during World War I brought abnormaly high prices, this was incouraged by the government. Then over production followed. When margins became smaller more fragil land was put under the plow.

I have some rememberance of the dust bowl days. I suppose the dust storms were not as severe here as we still had a majority of land still with native grass cover. His book mentions Blck Sunday I believe Palm Sunday April 14, 1935. I don't know if we had a black sunday here, perhaps the spring of 1935 was the worst year as the year before there was a complete crop failure and some land may have been nearly bare.

I was in the first grade that year and just barely six years old so really can't say I remember much of it. My vision of that time is wind and dust filled skies and watching from the school house windows tumble weeds blowing by. One day the moved to the South East the next back to the Northwest again and piling along the fences each time. I am not sure if I really experienced this or if it is just the picture I see from the talk of the time.

I do remember playing in the driveway of the granary because it was to windy to play outdoors, I think this was before I started to school. I remember dust filled skies, this was probaly a year or so later. After a windy dust filled day we found a red dust settled on everything, on cars setting in the yard, on the grass and in the house, the dust seaped through cracks around windows and settled on window sills. Everyone said this dust came from Oklhoma.

Static electricity caused by colliding dust particals was mentioned. I remember my brother pushing nails along the seams of the oven door of my mothers cookstove to see the sparks. Mother didn't like him to do that.

Mother belonged to a quilting club back then, probably 1936. As mothers didn't want to leave the kids home alone, they often went along. I remember one time it was held at the Jenson place, us kids played outside. It was windy day I suppose maybe in May. We would see dark clouds of dust in the distance moving our way. The boys a little older then ourselves, would say here comes a cyclone, then we would all go into the barn and wait until it passed by. This was repeated sevral times that afternoon.

A few years ago, a fellow who was in my grade back then, stopped in for a visit. I hadn't seen him since they left here in 1937. He mentioned one time when there was a real windy, dirty day, he and his brothers started to walk home from school, sometimes on such days the teacher let school out a little early. There was five boys from his family in school and a few others waked part of the way home with them. He said his father had come to get them with the truck as it was such a nasty day. He said they could not see the truck until it was right upon them.
 

I Luv Herfrds

Well-known member
One of my mother in laws stories happened in Kansas, where she was born.
She remembered that her Dad was driving and they were in between towns when one of those dust clouds came up. She couldn't remember if it was Black Sunday or not, but even with the headlights on, her Dad couldn't see the road. They did know a town was in front of them, but they couldn't see it anymore. The only way they stayed on the road is he kept swerving back and forth and her Mom sitting the passenger seat would let him now when she saw the shoulder. I believe she said the only way they knew they had made it, was they almost drove into a building.

Not long after that they left Kansas and headed to Montana.
 
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