National Guard Armory – Weatherford

Address:	223 West Rainy, Weatherford, Oklahoma	County:	Custer
Started:	October 1935	Completed:	March 1937
Agencies:	WPA	NRHP:	May 20, 1994

Current Usage:

City Property

Description:

As soon as possible in late 1935 and early 1936 Custer County municipalities created potential WPA projects. By the summer of 1936 these sponsors had submitted more than $250,000 in proposals. The Weatherford city commission submitted plans for a library, a swimming pool, a new park, and a $32,000 armory. A bond proposal funded the purchase of five downtown lots, which were deeded to the state. Thus, the city’s share of the cost of the armory was provided in land. 8 Groundbreaking for the Weatherford Armory took place on October 22, 1935, and construction proceeded through the rest of the year, through 1936, and into 1937. Local purchases of materials added to the project’s importance for the local economy. Due to funding lapses, materials shortages, and weather-related shutdowns, a short project expanded into a long one. In January of 1936, WPA administrator Gen. William S. Key ordered project supervisors to rearrange the work schedule from one eight-hour shift to two six-hour shifts per day. This would accomplish two purposes: it would employ more workers, a bona-fide WPA goal, and it would bring the project back onto its original schedule. At this time, thirty-three men were employed on the site. Finally completed in February, the Armory was dedicated on March 8, 1937. On that day, Weatherford celebrated with an open house, banquet, and band concert. General Key, state WPA director, and other state and local dignitaries participated in the dedication, and the program concluded with a dance in the new armory. 11 WPA projects in 1935-1937 propped up the sagging rural economy of Custer County. By the end of 1937, estimated WPA expenditures in the county topped $500,000, and projects in Weatherford totalled more than $155,000 and included a $6,000 library, a $10,000 pool and bathhouse, school buildings totalling $28,000, and bridge and road improvements totalling around $42,000. The WPA’s cost on the armory project was $45,000, with the city contributing the land. 12 In human terms, thousands of person-hours of labor went into the armory’s construction. Most significantly, a monthly average of forty-five men were employed on the project. These figures testify to the labor-intensive nature of WPA projects, which were designed to provide as much work as possible for those on relief rolls. Most of the hours were consumed in hand labor hod carrying, bricklaying, concrete-pouring, and in installing a wood-block floor in the 80′ by 125′ drill room (more than 200,000 pine blocks were cut, primed, set in asphalt, sanded, oiled, and polished, in sections). A concrete floor would have sufficed, but ample time and labor were available to create a complicated design. 13

Upon completion, the Weatherford Armory became the home of Battery D, 158th Field Artillery, 45th Infantry Division, Oklahoma National Guard. [1]