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Posted on Mon, Nov. 24, 2008

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FDR's New Deal left its mark on Wichita

BY BECCY TANNER

The Wichita Eagle

This is one in a series of vignettes celebrating Kansas history. The series' name comes from the state motto, Ad astra per aspera: "To the stars through difficulties."

In the fall of 1929, Wichita had every reason to be optimistic.

It boasted 16 aircraft plants and 13 flying schools, and expected to see at least 2,000 planes built here in 1930.

Clyde Reed, elected governor, was equally optimistic, claiming that by 1933 Wichita would produce 30,000 planes a year.

Then the Great Depression began, prompted by stock market crashes in October 1929.

As the markets crumbled in November and December of 1929, banks and creditors started forcing investors to repay loans, and the reality of what had happened on Wall Street began to sink in at homes and businesses across the nation.

Wichita saw a series of business closings, including many aircraft plants. Many Wichitans suddenly found themselves without jobs.

At the same time, drought threatened western Kansas, where farmers were growing wheat on a record number of acres.

Farmers who had borrowed heavily to expand in the good years suddenly couldn't pay off their loans. Farm foreclosures became as common as dust storms.

The statewide unemployment rate reached 26 percent by 1932. Local charities -- the Salvation Army and the Lions Club -- placed apple stands on street corners for the unemployed.

Then, there came hope.

That year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his New Deal and its many alphabet agencies. The idea was to bring work and people together.

Any man in Wichita who could prove residence of at least a year, was married and had no other form of income was entitled to two days of work a week at $2.25 a day.

Of all the communities in Kansas, Wichita perhaps benefited the most from the New Deal.

The program can be credited with the widening of Broadway and the construction of Morrison Hall at Wichita State University, Marshall Middle School at 1510 Payne, Lawrence-Dumont Stadium, the Wichita Municipal Airport and the Wichita Art Museum.

It included the construction of McLean Boulevard, which steered the course of the Arkansas River through downtown. That project also removed Ackerman Island from the river channel. The island had stretched from Douglas to where the Keeper of the Plains sculpture stands today.

Reach Beccy Tanner at 316-268-6336 or btanner@wichitaeagle.com.