My father, born and raised in Florida, settled in Oregon after World War II. When relatives came to visit, Timberline Lodge was at the top of his list of attractions to show them. There is irony here: a staunch Republican and FDR hater, he took great pride in showing off this Works Progress Administration make-work project. Franklin D. Roosevelt, creator of the New Deal bureaucracies, came to Mt. Hood to dedicate the Lodge in 1937.
If you remember Jack Nicholson terrorizing Shelley Duvall in The Shining, you’ve seen Timberline Lodge. It provided the exterior shots for the movie.
Along with construction laborers, building the Lodge also employed skilled craftsmen and artists. Handcrafted furniture and ironwork are 
prominent throughout the lodge. Construction, in an effort to keep costs down, is a case study in recycling. Draperies, upholstery and bedspreads, and hooked rugs were made from strips of old Civilian Conservation Corps camp blankets. Discarded cedar utility poles were crafted into stairway posts with their crowns hand-carved into birds, bears and seals. Fireplace screens were produced from tire chains. Andirons and other ironwork were forged from old railroad tracks. WPA workers used large timbers and local stone from the site.
In its eight years, the Works Progress Administration employed over eight-million workers to build roads, bridges, airports, schools, courthouses, hospitals, sidewalks, waterworks, post offices, parks, community centers, zoos, city halls and much more. Most are still in use. Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, River Walk in San Antonio and LaGuardia Airport in New York are WPA projects. The WPA also had branches for Art, Theatre, Writers and Music.
The Civilian Conservation Corps put to work young, unmarried, unemployed men. They lived in camps supervised by reserve army officers. CCC workers planted nearly 3 billion trees, constructed more than 800 parks and upgraded most state parks, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas. Mount Tamalpais State Park in Marin County California is one example.
In our time of crumbling roads, bridges, sewers and other infrastructure, could it be instructive to look back at what was accomplished during the Great Depression?
Those that could make something like the WPA or the CCC happen are the ones with the most to lose. They will simply not let it a ‘working man’ mentality happen again in this country.