Arthurdale FDR’s 1^st resettlement town in America

Reedsville Project, which became Arthurdale

Arthurdale, east of Morgantown, was the first FDR New Deal resettlement town built in the country. It was begun in 1934 as the Reedsville Project, but the name was changed to the man the government bought the land from, Richard Arthur.

Land was purchased, residents were selected, homes were constructed, more residents were selected, more homes constructed until there were 165 homes and several community buildings including a school complex, built on 1,200 acres in Preston County. 

Most of the buildings still stand and are part of the New Deal Homestead Museum.

Many of the new residents were displaced miners from the Scott’s Run area near Morgantown and government employees -- teachers, physicians, surveyors, engineers, secretaries.

The homesteaders were responsible for paying rent, working and farming their allotted acreage.

The federal government liquidated its holdings in Arthurdale in 1947, selling the homes and community buildings to private owners.

Later in 1934, another FDR community was built in what today is Eleanor, named after FDR’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, it began as the Red House Settlement in Daily, East Daily and Valley Bend.

Other FDR communities were built in Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

It was FDR’s attempt to build infrastructure, reduce unemployment and bolster the national economy. 

In that vein, he created the Works Progress Administration, which built the stone Fairview High gymnasium that hosted high school sectional basketball tournaments for years and dwarfed Monongah High’s bandbox gym, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, which provided employment and a healthy outlet for teens and young adults while improving America’s parks and forests.

To read more about the Arthurdale project, click on http://www.arthurdaleheritage.org/history/