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Anonymous
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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