In this month’s episode of Archive Dive, we look at how a federal program helped shape Superior. During the bleakest days of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. The New Deal agency employed millions of job seekers, with an average salary of about $41.57 per month. Through public works projects like the airport, a baseball stadium and Itasca School, the program helped shape Superior’s landscape. But, it also helped preserve its history.

For this episode, Telegram reporter Maria Lockwood is joined by local historian and retired librarian Teddie Meronek as they look at the benefits of the program and the challenges of the times. Some of the buildings and projects remain today. The Great Depression started in 1929 and things had changed throughout the country, including in Superior.

"I don't think we can even imagine what it was like back then," said Meronek. "So many people were out of work."

Meronek also said, “If you look through old newspapers, in the late 1920s, you see that Superior was booming,there were all these new businesses opening up. You go and you look a couple of years later and they are all gone, so it was tough times. The WPA did not start until 1935, so there was a gap there. Four or five years where it was hard for everyone. No jobs. No money. The WPA came in and things started to change.”

In her research, Mereonek found that in 1935, the average unemployment rate across the United States was 20 percent.

“You have to find a solution and they came up with the WPA,” said Meronek. “It put people to work in Superior. They built things like the sewer system, they put in sidewalks, the repaved streets and they built buildings.”

Maria and Teddie will also discuss how parks, artists and musicians benefited; who the materials belong to; the story of a freckle contest; Wheel Day; and much more. Meronek even shares an interesting story about her parent's Honeymoon as they were married during the Great Depression.

New episodes of Archive Dive are published monthly. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are edited and produced by Duluth News Tribune digital producers Wyatt Buckner and Dan Williamson. If you have an idea for a topic you’d like to see covered, email Maria Lockwood at [email protected].