top of page
Your Pass to WPA Murals & Architecture
During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration was created to help provide economic relief to the citizens suffering through the Great Depression. Raton is home to several WPA Murals in the Shuler Theater, Arthur Johnson Library, and the post office. From 1933 to 1943 the Works Progress Administration programs would pay artists to paint murals in courthouses, Schools, and build decorative furniture, tin chandeliers and support traditional crafts among the Indigenous and Hispanic people of New Mexico.
In the years of the Great Depression new roads, bridges, dams, hiking trails, and rock-solid schoolhouses were being built throughout the state of New Mexico. The goal was simply putting people to work to design the things that every community needed. But not every person could go up and down with a hammer. So, that's when the engineers of New Deal sent up a different kind of army for a very much different need, and that army included paintbrushes, clay, pencils, cameras, and guitars. You can find these murals like these in the post office, Shuler Theater, and the Arthur Johnson library. shulertheater.com
bottom of page