The first expenditure in Texas of federal monies allocated for the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration created the Texas Relief Commission in 1933. With the establishment of the massive Work Projects Administration (WPA, originally titled the Works Progress Administration) in 1935, over 600,000 unemployed and destitute heads-of-household (both men and women) in Texas were provided with employment and subsistence-level wages during the last eight years of the Great Depression. In 1943 the program was phased out, rendered unnecessary by the decrease in unemployment and in the number of Texans seeking financial assistance.
In Runnels County, as in the rest of Texas, most WPA projects were devoted to the construction of schools and other public works. The Ballinger High School, Winters School, Runnels County Courthouse, and other buildings were erected or improved by workers paid from WPA funds. In addition, school-lunch programs and other minor projects provided income for a few more unemployed Runnels County residents.
From the guide to the Runnels County (Texas) New Deal Agencies Records 83-77., 1933-1943, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
