New Deal Accomplishment: Thousands of fish hatcheries built or improved

Above: The Lake Dallas Fish Hatchery in Denton County, Texas, was one of the largest in the nation. It was constructed by WPA workers, 1937-1938. The description for this photograph, taken near the time of its completion, explained that the hatchery consisted of 52 ponds and "supplies 17 counties with big mouth black bass, calico bass, channel catfish, crappie, cherry bream, long eared bream, and green perch [more commonly known as green sunfish]." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The WPA-built superintendent's house at the Lake Dallas Fish Hatchery, ca. 1938. The hatchery only lasted until 1953, when it was sacrificed for a large dam and water impoundment project (what is now the "Lewisville Lake"), but it was very successful in propagating fish. For example, in 1951 it "produced 750,000 baby bass, 500,000 bream, 300,000 crappie, and a like number of channel cat" ("Lake Dallas Fish Hatchery, Which Has Great Record, To Be Submerged," Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas), June 15, 1952). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: The Ridge Fish Hatchery in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, ca. 1936. This hatchery opened sometime between 1921 and 1931, and then WPA workers expanded the facility in 1936-1937 in order to double the production of black bass: "Expansion of the facilities at Ridge are under way through the Works Progress Administration to more than double the capacity for producing such fish. Two new rearing ponds covering about six acres are under construction. They will eventually increase the output to more than 100,000 bass each year" ("State Conservation Commission To Double Capacity of Ridge Hatchery," Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, West Virginia), December 27, 1936). The "Ridge State Fish Hatchery" still operates today--now focusing on trout propagation--and was recently renovated ("Ridge Fish Hatchery in Berkeley Springs Getting an Upgrade," Morgan County USA, April 19, 2021). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A worker inspecting the fingerlings at the Prairie Creek Fish Hatchery near Orick, California, 1937. This hatchery is on the National Register of Historic Places and was built by the WPA in 1936, replacing a much smaller facility (see, e.g., "Requa Camp Put Under PWA [actually, WPA]; Two Big Tasks Ready," The Humboldt Times (Eureka, California), November 28, 1935; "Fish Hatchery Work Okayed," Humboldt Standard (Eureka, California), February 19, 1936; "Work Begun On Prairie Creek Fish Hatchery," The Humboldt Times, March 3, 1936; and "Klamath River: Wing Dam At Mouth Of Great Stream Is Almost Completed," The Humboldt Times, June 18, 1936). Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A fish transport truck from the Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery in Burnet, Texas. This hatchery was built by the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA), 1938-1940, and was the largest fish hatchery in Texas at the time. See the Inks Dam Hatchery web page, "About Us," and also, "NYA Project at Inks Dam Means Largest Texas Fish Hatchery," The Kerrville Times (Kerrville, Texas), August 11, 1938, p. 5. The latter reported, "The NYA boys, selected chiefly from families living in small towns and rural areas, work about half time and during the other half are engaged in a training program in subsistence farming methods and in farm shop work. A tract of arable land adjacent to the fish hatchery is being cultivated by these boys as a part of the farm training." Photo by Jeff Conway, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Public Domain.

Above: In addition to replenishing fish, the NYA-built Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery provides many recreation opportunities. This screenshot is from the hatchery's "Visit Us" page.

Above: An enrollee of the Civilian Conservation Corps - Indian Division (CCC-ID) holds a muskellunge that was caught for spawning at the Lac du Flambeau Fish Hatchery (Wisconsin). The CCC-ID built the hatchery in 1936 but "The original structure was recently replaced with a new state-of-the-art facility that doubles fish production" ("William J. Poupart, Sr. Fish Hatchery," Lac du Flambeau Chamber of Commerce, accessed November 6, 2025). Photo from Indians at Work, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, June 1940 edition.

Above: "Trout-Fishing, Saugatuck River" a drypoint and aquatint on paper, created by Ralph Ludwig Boyer (1879-1952) while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, between 1935 and 1939. The Saugatuck River is in Connecticut. Image from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Fish Work

The fish hatchery work of the New Deal:

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC): 4,622 fish-rearing ponds built; maintenance performed on 1,171 existing ponds. (Source)

Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA): 98 new fish hatcheries constructed; 119 improved. (Source) 

Works Progress Administration (WPA): 161 new fish hatcheries built; 294 projects to expand, reconstruct, or improve existing hatcheries. (Source) 

National Youth Administration (NYA): 51,208 projects to build or improve fish hatcheries. There is not a lot of easily-accessible information about these projects, but one would assume that this very large statistic includes many projects at single hatcheries, for example, at one location: a storage shed = one project; an additional pond = one project; repairing the superintendent's house = one project; and so forth. (Source)

Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Public Works Administration (PWA): Newspaper articles and government reports show that these two agencies engaged in quite a bit of fish hatchery work, but total numbers are elusive.

The New Deal's hatchery work was clearly enormous. However, because of the different ways that the numbers were reported, and because of missing and hard-to-find information, it's difficult or impossible to know exactly how many fish hatcheries received New Deal funds and labor. Perhaps the most accurate thing we can say is: Thousands of fish hatcheries were built or improved.