New Deal Accomplishment: Over 4,500 new barns, stables, and corrals


Above: A WPA-built barn in Washington Township, Scioto County, Ohio, ca. 1938. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: A WPA-built barn at the University of Maryland College Park, 1939. The barn appears to still exist at the college's Department of Animal and Avian Sciences Campus Farm - a farm "considered to be the 'jewel' of the department as it provides essential hands-on learning opportunities for our students" ("Campus Farm," University of Maryland, accessed July 12, 2025). Photo from the National Archives.


Above: "Connecticut Barns in Landscape," an oil painting by Charles Sheeler (1883-1965), created while he was in the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project, 1934. Image from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.


Above: The WPA constructed this dairy barn at the "Morris Memorial Hospital for Crippled Children" in Milton, West Virginia, 1938. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: Racing stables at the 11th Agricultural District Fairgrounds, San Diego, California, 1937. Built by WPA workers. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: The description for this photograph, taken in December 1937, reads: "Exterior of barns built by the WPA on Missouri State Fairgrounds." Photo from the National Archives.


Above: Inside a WPA barn at the Missouri State Fairgrounds (see previous photo). Photo from the National Archives.


Above: "Windswept Barn," a gouache painting by Edward Millman (1907-1964), created while he was in the WPA, between 1935 and 1943. Image from the Brooklyn Museum and the General Services Administration.


Above: From the Hickory Daily Record (Hickory, North Carolina), December 12, 1938. Image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.


Above: A cooperative poultry barn at the New Deal community of Arthurdale, West Virginia, 1936. Photo by Edwin Locke, Farm Security Administration, courtesy of the Library of Congress.


Above: In the 1930s, the CCC-built this horseback riding stable at Lost River State Park, West Virginia. Ninety years later, you can still go horseback riding out of this building. Photo from a West Virginia Parks and Recreation brochure, scanned from a personal copy.


Above: The CCC also built corrals, such as the one described above as "the best of its kind in southern Utah." From The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah), June 25, 1940; image from newspapers.com, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.


Above: Photo from: Henry G. Alsberg, America Fights the Depression: A Photographic Record of the Civil Works Administration, New York: Coward-McCann Publishers, 1934, used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Above: The WPA built this pig barn at the Preble County Fairgrounds, Ohio, 1936. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: "The Windmill," an oil painting by Jenne Magafan (1916-1952), created while she was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, ca. 1937. Magafan's barn has an interesting pyramid-like design. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: A number of New Deal agencies were involved in the establishment and development of the Matanuska Colony in Alaska. Some of the original structures, including barns, are still with us today (see, e.g., this Wikipedia article). Photo above scanned from a personal postcard collection; not credited except for "Robinson" on the front. Used here for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Barns, Stables, and Corrals

The most easily-accessible statistics regarding New Deal barn, stable, and corral construction comes from the final reports of the WPA and CCC: Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 1,930 new barns and stables across the U.S., and had 4,246 other projects to reconstruct, improve, or add to existing barns and stables; and from 1933-1942, the CCC built 1,162 new barns, 1,509 new corrals, and had 894 other projects to maintain such structures.

There was certainly much more of this type of work from other agencies, but we can at least say that the New Deal constructed over 4,500 new barns, stables and corrals, and had over 5,000 other projects to improve or maintain them.

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