Website needs more data on New Deal projects

The good news is someone has put together an interactive map of New Deal sites that were built beginning in the 1930s and are still standing.

The bad news is the listings on the map are incomplete. Carthage, Missouri, for instance, has a few such sites that aren’t listed. However, you can offer listings to the map of sites in your town, including on Route 66.

Even so, the Living New Deal map lists more than 7,000 sites, which shows you how massive of an impact the Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, Public Works Administration, Federal Art Project and others made on the country even now. The federal programs were enacted to help prop up the country during the throes of the Great Depression.

Using the map, you’ll find dozens of such projects on Route 66, including the Old National Guard Armory in Chandler, Oklahoma, that eventually was converted into the Route 66 Interpretive Center.

Others include the distinctive Ackley Park Baseball Stadium in Elk City, Oklahoma; New Mexico State Fairgrounds Buildings in Albuquerque; Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California; Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles; the Illinois State Armory in Springfield; and dozens of schools, post offices and murals.

If you notice something missing, you can check the online submission form here.

(Hat tip: Michelle Hansford, Powers Museum in Carthage, Missouri; image of the Route 66 Interpretive Center in Chandler, Oklahoma, by Charlie Chapman 75 via Flickr)