The WPA was the Federal government’s program to to put people back to work during the Great Depression. It ran from 1935 until 1943 and replaced earlier relief projects. Until 1939, it was called “Works Progress Administration”; after that time “Works Projects Administration.”

Whenever possible, the WPA used people on projects rather than machines to increase employment. It was not supposed to compete with private industry. Seven percent of the budget was allocated for arts programs and the remainder for public facilities and infrastructure. Upwards of $1200 a year was allocated per worker and no one was supposed to work more than 30 hours in a week.

The WPA came along at just the right time for the Cape’s unemployed. A dramatic downturn in vacationing in 1932 and 1933 lessened job opportunities and in 1934, unemployment on Cape Cod stood at 38.7%. Money was tight, work scarce and nearly everyone struggled. Fishing, hunting and gardens helped put food on the table but Cape Codders who lived through that time remembered the hunger they often felt.

Each town had a WPA coordinator and Yarmouth’s was Herbert Canning. Among the jobs for the WPA in Yarmouth was the rehabilitation of the old South Yarmouth District School which became the town offices in 1937. It was located between Mill Lane and Main Street, just to the south and rear of the Methodist Church where the library now has its parking lot. It is no longer there. As part of its opening celebration, a WPA Vaudeville troupe performed in February 1937. Artists of all types were considered “socially useful workers” and eligible to work.

The old South Yarmouth School House, late 1880s.

Coordinator Canning hired 13 women for a sewing project at this location. These women made clothing for those on relief. Fourteen men worked on the Yarmouth town parks, eight painted the John Simpkins School, and 22 worked on mosquito control. Mosquito control was a Cape-wide project, with more than 1500 miles of trenches made in the marshes to help control mosquitoes and flies by draining pools of water.

Twenty-seven Yarmouth people were hired for a Farm Market Project, but Cape Cod was unsuccessful in convincing the WPA of the need of promoting the beach plum as an agricultural crop. In Dennis, projects included miles of sidewalks as well as improvement of public roads. The WPA even helped re-seed shellfish beds in Bass River and elsewhere.

Road and bridge construction were given priority. The Bass River Bridge carrying Route 28 between Yarmouth and Dennis, was a WPA project. The $200,000 cost was split 70% state, 30% WPA. The project required removing an island created when an earlier bridge had been constructed. Concrete piers were set with steam pile drivers and a wooden pedestrian bridge was built across the river so walkers would have access to both sides. Vehicles had to go to the upper bridge at Highbank Road during construction.

Foot bridge across Bass River during construction.

WPA workers helped other important federal projects. The Bourne and Sagamore bridges were started in 1933 before the WPA, but WPA funds were used in the widening of the canal. The bridges were completed just in time; by 1936, tourism was beginning to turn around. That year, 175,000 visitors came to Cape Cod.

The biggest project undertaken was the building of Camp Edwards. The State guard had been training at Shawme-Crowell State Park on Cape Cod since 1911. In 1935, the state purchased 25,000 acres for $5.50 an acre on land adjacent to the Shawme-Crowell State Park. The land had been a sheep ranch. Between 1935 and 1940, 63 buildings and two turf runways were constructed using WPA funds and 600 workers were employed. Only Building 102 and the old Williams Hospital remain.

As part of a military buildup, three paved runways, each 4000 feet long at Barnstable Municipal Airport, were paid for by the WPA. The first concrete runway was completed in 1942.

Artists in Provincetown and across the Cape were paid to paint. Ross Moffett created murals, and in 1935 did the drawings for murals which are now on display at the Provincetown Town Hall. The most famous of the mid-Cape WPA artists was Vernon Coleman. He was paid $17 a week to paint more than 100 murals. These include ones at the Centerville Recreation Building showing Centerville sea captain James Delap Keley in his dory fishing for cod; in the State Teachers College, now the Barnstable Town Hall in Hyannis, a mural of the clipper Red Jacket; in what is now the new Pope John Paul II High School in Hyannis, several murals; and a large mural in the entrance to the John Simpkins School in South Yarmouth.

Writers were also hired. In 1937, the “Cape Cod Pilot” was written by Jeremiah Digges (really Josef Berger). Originally done privately while Berger was working on the Massachusetts Guide Book for the WPA, “The Cape Cod Pilot” was both a guide book and an incredibly interesting compendium of historical facts, crusty sea captains and Yankee oddities. It was so good that the WPA convinced Berger to include it under their auspices and allowed him to earn the royalties. In the 1985 reprint, Edward Gorey wrote the introduction and stated that this book “brings forth the very soul of this special place.” You can find a copy in your local library.

Compilation of the Barnstable County Cemetery Inscriptions was part of the Federal Writers’ Project, a great resource for genealogists. The National Archives as cooperating sponsor began an Historic Records Survey which broadened knowledge of early ship-building here. They were the Alphabetical Listing of Ship Registers (755 vessels) in the District of Barnstable from 1814-1913, and Ship Registers (821 vessels) of the District of Plymouth from 1798-1908, both created from Customs House records. Within these two volumes are the only records of many vessels built on Cape Cod.

World War II had been going for more than a year when the WPA ended in 1943. Cape Cod saw income from the more than 70,000 soldiers stationed at Camp Edwards and other areas for training. Among the more famous military men on Cape Cod during WWII were future president George Herbert Walker Bush (41) and Bill Mauldin, creator of the “Willie and Joe” cartoons. World War II provided the economics needed to drive the new Cape economy.

The next time you travel over the Bass River Bridge, remember that it was a WPA project, still in use 90 years later.

Researched and written by Stuart Baker, Maureen Rukstalis, and Duncan Oliver

Top image - WPA art program with children in Harwich.

Want to learn more about the Cape Cod Canal and its bridges? Join us on March 10th at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod when Samantha Gray, US Army Corps of Engineers Park Ranger, will tell us about their history.

Click HERE to learn more and reserve a ticket.