Relief, Recovery and Reform:
The New Deal in Johnson County
The Great Depression was an unprecedented nationwide economic collapse that started with the stock market crash in 1929 and lasted well over a decade. By 1932, approximately one in four Americans was unemployed. To stabilize and stimulate the economy, legislative initiatives were passed by the U.S. Congress to provide economic relief, recovery and reform. In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt expanded some of the relief programs implemented during World War I and created new federal programs to provide relief for American citizens. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was created that year. It later separated into several organizations that formed the base of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs. These agencies became known as the “alphabet agencies” since most had long names and were often better known by their initials with the public.
EARLY PROGRAMS: FERA AND KERC
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) initially was authorized $500,000,000 to provide grants to state and local governments. Rural rehabilitation corporations were organized within each state to distribute the funds to counties and cities. The Kansas Emergency Relief Committee (KERC) was created to serve that function. One of the earliest projects initiated in Johnson County was a water conservation project. By 1934, Johnson County was in a severe water crisis, having experienced extensive drought conditions for two years. To combat the problem, the KERC assigned relief workers to build ponds from one to 15 acres in size throughout the county. 15 pond sites had been selected and four ponds completed by mid-April of 1935. These ponds were completed in Monticello (now Shawnee), Stanley (now Overland Park), Stilwell and Gardner. In times of emergency, the ponds, located on private land, were to be opened for public use. In addition, two pump stations were installed on the Kaw River in Johnson County to help relieve the water shortage. One was near De Soto and the other was installed near Wilder, now part of western Shawnee.
THE CCC, CWA AND PWA
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was also established by the U.S. Congress in 1933 to provide work and vocational training for unemployed single men. Projects focused on conserving and developing the nation’s natural resources. At its height in 1935, the CCC employed over 500,000 men in 2600 camps across the nation under the direction of the War Department.Applicants to the program from Johnson County applied through the County Poor Commissioner, X. O. Meyer. This office had been created in 1933 to oversee all applications for county poor relief. In April of 1934, 24 men from Johnson County were selected to join the CCC and were sent to a temporary camp in Minneapolis, KS.
The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was created as an experimental program in federal work relief, giving unemployed workers mainly public service jobs during the winter of 1933- 34. Young men between 18-25 years of age planted trees, built public parks, restocked rivers with fish and other projects designed to conserve the environment. Men were paid $30 per month of which $22 was sent home to family members. Also in 1933, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was created. The PWA built large public works projects using private contractors and differed from early programs such as the CCC and the CWA in that it did not directly hire unemployed workers.
A 1934 newspaper article announced that CWA classes were available and the enrollment was strong in Johnson County. Courses included geometry, health, shorthand, typing, bookkeeping, government, commercial arithmetic, English and refresher courses. Some classes were taught at Lincoln School in Olathe. A CWA sponsored nursery school was also opened in 1934 in Gardner. The CWA program was not long-lived however. Budget cuts eliminated most of the programs. Others were administered beginning in April, 1934 by the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee (KERC). These projects included highways, grandstands, storm sewers, irrigation and drainage ditches, privies, grandstands, playgrounds, ponds and parks, among other projects.
THE WPA
In the spring of 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was launched nationally, superseding many earlier programs, among them the CWA and FERA. Much of the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee (KERC) funding was cut to make way for the new WPA programs. In May of 1935, the Water Conservation program of the KERC was discontinued and it was announced that all work on the project was to cease by the end of that same month.Across Kansas the WPA program employed approximately seven thousand people in every county. They built roads, decorated post offices and other public buildings, and gathered and published state and local histories. In August of 1935, the Works Progress Administration District Director, Oscar J. Palmer, visited with public officials and submitted 12 projects to the district WPA office in Topeka. They included road work, building of culverts, operating gravel crushers and five sewing rooms for women. Mr. Palmer also announced a farm pond program to be initiated by the WPA in Johnson County, which may have been a continuation of the earlier Water Conservation Program of the KERC. Although some early programs were taken over by the WPA, other agencies including the CCC and PWA continued their work in Johnson County. In 1937, a waterworks project in Lenexa totaling $87,272 was made possible by a $39,272 grant from the PWA.
Johnson County benefited most from projects funded by the Works Progress Administration. In 1938, a street improvement project costing $9,321 was approved for the City of De Soto. It included the improvement of city-owned streets and alleys by grading, surfacing and providing adequate drainage. The funds also included the cost to operate quarries and crushers in the De Soto area to produce the necessary materials for the project. Another project was approved in August of the same year, providing $3,413 for remodeling a city-owned building in Edgerton to serve as a community building for the city and for general public use. In 1939, a WPA project for upgrades to the playground at School District No. 92 was approved for Mission Township. The school, known locally as Roesland School, was the beneficiary of $4,869.00 worth of improvements. The work included raising the grade, construction of a wall, and filling and leveling the playground. In Gardner, a city auditorium was constructed at the southeast corner of Elm and Shawnee as a WPA project. This building now houses parks and recreation functions. In Olathe, several hundred WPA workers helped with the paving of brick roads and built the original Mill Creek swimming pool.
The WPA differed from earlier relief programs in that it provided work for nonconstruction workers, such as office workers, teachers, artists and musicians. The WPA funded the Historical Records Survey of Kansas, a compilation of bibliographies of county records throughout the state of Kansas. In 1938 the Johnson County edition of the survey was completed. Copies of the original inventory are still used by researchers of local history. Also in were opened, one each at the Central and Lincoln Schools in Olathe, KS. The activities included games, crafts and story hours for children aged 6 to 14. A WPA grant also provided the funds for the mural "Romance of the Mail" completed by Albert T. Reid for the new Olathe Post Office dedicated in 1939.
The Edgerton Grange Hall, located at 404 E. Nelson, was originally built in 1904. The first floor of the building was renovated in 1938 by WPA workers for use as a community center. Today, the building serves as City Hall. It was placed on the Kansas State Register of Historic Places in 1998. JCM Collection. Across Kansas the WPA program employed Administration (WPA . ) A major goal of 1938, two recreational summer playgrounds
GARDNER LAKE
Perhaps the largest and most impressive WPA project in Johnson County was the construction of a lake just north of Gardner known as Gardner Lake. The lake was created by damming Kill Creek. Work originally began under the KERC in 1934 until the WPA took over the project the following year. In 1935, it was noted that only a few of the original 11 workers that came to work on May 6, 1934, stayed to see the camp develop from small tents with a “ramshackle” kitchen into a modern camp. The WPA built small shacks around the proposed site to house the men that were hired to help build the project. Later, these WPA shacks were reused again at the Johnson County fairgrounds for booths. That same year, flood lamps were installed to allow work to continue around the clock.The site was visited by about 2,000 Johnson County residents and visitors for a combination "open house" and Fourth of July celebration in 1935, which included fireworks and a square dance. Visitors could view the modern campsite, which had grown to include a large mess hall, kitchen, laundry, recreation room and hospital. At the site of the dam, a new office, a machine shop, a blacksmith shop and a truck shed were built. The progress of the project was recounted in the pages of The Spillway, a mimeographed newspaper published by the workers at Gardner Camp beginning in August of 1935. It also included a history of the formation of the camp.
In July of 1937, the approximately 180 acre lake was beginning to fill with water behind the 1,400 foot dam, and some cabins around the lake were constructed. At that time, there was a baseball diamond just to the left of the new road to the lake grounds, which was a common place for Sunday afternoon games. In addition to the lake, a small park with stone shelter houses was built, and work on stone picnic ovens, a combination shelter and bath house, a bathing beach, and landscaping projects continued. The project was finally completed in May of 1940. NYA Johnson County also was home to a National Youth Administration (NYA) camp. The NYA was a federal government agency developed under the Works Progress Administration in 1935. Throughout the nation, the NYA addressed the problems of the lack of employment for youth. The agency was a passion for First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who feared long-term unemployment and severe poverty would present long-term problems for America’s youth and shake their faith in democracy.
I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they are necessary. —Eleanor Roosevelt, 1934
The National Youth Administration provided grants to high school and college students, enabling them to continue their studies in exchange for work. For young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who were both unemployed and not in school, the NYA combined economic relief with training in federally funded work projects to provide them with marketable skills for future employment.
In August of 1935, a National Youth Administration camp for girls was started near Zarah, (today’s western Shawnee). The camp itself occupied a golf course known in the past by several names including Elm Ridge, the Shawnee Golf Club and Hoffsdale. This camp for girls was said to be the first of its kind established in the Midwest and one of 23 camps established by the NYA nationally.
Twelve cabins behind the club house served as the dormitories for the women. Up to 70 ladies would stay for a four-month session, devoting two hours a day to a work project making toys or other articles. Other coursework included home management, cooking, sewing, knitting, dramatics, music, journalism and English. In an article published in The Kansas City Star in 1937, the girls were shown cooking, gardening, and making nets for tennis courts that were to be constructed in Kansas by the NYA day. Over 1,000 girls received training during more than nine sessions at the camp. In 1936, it was estimated that 90 percent of the girls who went through the government training at this Johnson County camp became gainfully employed. Eleanor Roosevelt herself visited the camp in November of 1936. But despite the recognized success of the funding.
The onset of World War II officially ended the Great Depression. The war stimulated the economy and in the process ended the need for many of the relief agencies and their projects. However, there is no doubt of the lasting effects of these programs and projects in the community. Gardner Lake and the numerous improvements to the infrastructure of the county not only provided many people in our area employment and the skills to survive the Great Depression, but also stand today as reminders of this devasting period in the nation’s history.
--ALBUM vol. 19, no. 1 (winter 2006)