Government Projects in Mineola

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm tellin' it to you. The Great Depression. Nineteen twenty-nine to nineteen forty-one.

Twelve years that wrung this country out like a wet rag, and Mineola, Texas was not immune. But here's the thing about hard times: sometimes they force people, and governments, to get creative. So pull up close, because this is a story about a town that didn't go down without a fight, and it had some help.

The federal kind, and the local kind. The Works Progress Administration and the Civil Works Administration came to Mineola with something desperately simple: work. They employed workers.

They funded the paving of streets. They funded the construction of a federal building. They opened government aid offices, places where people in trouble could walk through a door and find somebody on the other side.

And then, as if to say that the human spirit needed feeding too, not just the body, they commissioned an artist. A man named Bernard Zakheim. And Bernard Zakheim painted a mural.

Right there in the city post office. Think about that. People coming in to send a letter, maybe their last dollar folded inside an envelope, and on the wall above them, art.

Color. Somebody's vision of something worth looking at. Meanwhile, Mineola's own municipal authorities were not sitting idle.

They helped residents in need. They made sewer and water extension improvements, the unglamorous work that keeps a town alive. And they ran a malaria control program, because in a time of crisis, the threats don't stop stacking up just because you're already struggling.

Federal programs, local programs, a mural and a paved street and a water line. None of it was perfect. None of it made the Depression disappear.

But together, those government efforts combined to protect Mineola residents in what the marker calls, plainly and correctly, a tumultuous time in U.S. history. Sometimes surviving a storm isn't one big heroic act. Sometimes it's a painted wall, a paved road, and somebody leaving the light on at the aid office.

What the marker says

During the Great Depression (1929-41), Mineola residents were aided by federal and local government initiatives. Federal programs such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civil Works Administration (CWA) employed workers; provided funds for civic improvement, including street paving and the construction of a federal building; opened government aid offices; and commissioned artist Bernard Zakheim to paint a mural in the city post office. Municipal authorities also helped residents in need, made sewer and water extension improvements, and conducted a malaria control program. These government efforts combined to protect Mineola residents in a tumultuous time in U.S. history.