Driving Tour of Arthurdale

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Welcome to the first New Deal planned community of Arthurdale, West Virginia! Started in 1933 under the direct personal guidance of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthurdale was the first of 99 such towns that the federal government constructed throughout the Great Depression for economically distressed areas nationwide. Arthurdale was constructed specifically to provide economic relief to destitute coal miners and their families from Scotts Run, WV, a place that became the poster-child of poverty in the Great Depression due to its prominence in the national press. In total, 165 families were situated in houses in Arthurdale with 2-5 acres of farmland each, barns, tools, education, healthcare, and employment opportunities for all. This was a massive and expensive project, but ultimately left these families with more resources and opportunities than they had before. Arthurdale Heritage currently operates a five-building museum on the site. Come step back in time and get a sense of the New Deal, the Great Depression, subsistence farming, and family life in 1930s rural West Virginia.Please note that many places included on this tour are private residences. We ask that visitors be respectful of the homes as you drive by them.

2. Ruins at Center Hall

Here, several buildings once stood that were important fixtures in the Arthurdale community. A general store, nursery school, tea room, weaving studio, and furniture factory building all existed in this space. These businesses were part of the Arthurdale Association, a non-share corporation and branch of the Mountaineer Craftmen’s Cooperative Association operating in Scotts Run. The association took out loans for several cooperative ventures in Arthurdale including a store, farm, inn, a barber shop, industrial factory, and service station, as well as a dairy and poultry operation.

3. Administration Building

The Administration building was constructed in 1934 to house the New Deal federal agencies which managed the newly formed Arthurdale experimental community. The Admin building is our main museum, and you can purchase tickets in the Craft Shop. Just past the Admin and Forge buildings, is our Chestnut Tree Orchard.

4. Blacksmith's Forge

The Forge was constructed in 1934 as a metal working shop. It supplied items like iron door hinges and handles plus copper sconces for some of the new buildings. Under the brand of Mountaineer Craftsmen’s Cooperative Association (MCCA) it produced decorative items in wrought iron, pewter, and copper. They were available at the Craft Shop, some shops in the Northeast, and through catalogs. Lon Fullmer and Forest Cress were the smiths. Lon was trained before arriving in Arthurdale.

5. Doctor's Residence*

The Arthurdale doctor provided healthcare to the formerly impoverished homesteaders and their families. He and his family lived next to the health clinic. The first physician, Dr. Harry Timbres, arrived in Arthurdale in 1934 to provide much needed medical services to the community. He was paid by the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) who were involved in several areas of Arthurdale. Dr. M.J.W. White was the first physician to live in this home when he became the community doctor in 1935. From 1935-1939, the resident doctor was John Lehman.

6. Health Clinic*

The Health Clinic at E-5 was staffed by the doctor who lived next door and one or two nurses who worked out of this house. Many homesteader babies were born here from 1935 into the 1940s. Eleanor Roosevelt believed that one of the most important issues to address in the new community was health care. The Arthurdale Health Association formed in 1937 and each family paid $2 a month for basic care. It housed a three-bed, one crib clinic from 1936 to 1938.

7. E-2 Kees Hodgson House

This prefabricated Hodgson house was one of the earliest completed houses. The Arnold & Edith Malone family were one of the first 32 homesteader families who moved in on July 1, 1934. Their son Richard was the first baby born on the project that November. After they moved away, several young men who were training at the Arthurdale National Youth Association bunked there.

8. E-13 Houghton Wagner House*

This Wagner-style house was finished in 1935 and became the home of Dan and Ann Houghton. Dan Houghton, a mechanical engineer, was part of the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) and taught woodworking to the unemployed miners, beginning in 1931. The AFSC formed a group to market the miners’ crafts. The Mountaineer Craftsmen’s Cooperative Association moved to Arthurdale in 1934. Dan supervised the furniture making and designed furniture, looms, and metal goods. He married Ann, who had a medical background, in 1935 and she helped with well-baby clinics and weaving. They decided to become homesteaders and stayed after the government left.

9. E-15 Heinz Wagner House

The second style of houses constructed in Arthurdale were called Wagner-style houses. They are named after Steward Wagner, the New York City-based architect who designed them in the mid 1930s. The E-15 Homestead represents a typical Wagner home, of which 75 were built in Arthurdale. In 1999, Arthurdale Heritage, Inc. purchased the home and restored and historically preserved it as a museum house to give visitors a glimpse into the life of the 1930s homesteaders. This Wagner was originally lived in by the Heinz family.

10. Q-7 Fullmer Wagner House*

This Wagner was the home to Lon and Elizabeth Fullmer and their 12 children. You may recognize Mr. Fullmer's name from the Forge where he was one of the two full-time Blacksmiths. He had been a skilled Blacksmith before coming Arthurdale and taught fellow homesteaders while he worked in the forge. After the government left, he continued to work in his own forge which was in the barn at Q-7. Some of his work is in the Smithsonian collection.

11. U-2 Maxwell Wagner House*

Homesteaders Creed and Hattie Maxwell first occupied this Wagner house. Before being accepted into the Arthurdale project, Creed had been blacklisted in the mines of Scotts Run for his union organizing activity. This kept him from working in the mines and he and his family struggled to survive until they moved to Arthurdale in 1935.

12. Arthurdale Cemetery

The Arthurdale Cemetery is the last remaining homestead cooperative of the dozen that were established within this community. Other cooperatives included the general store, barber shop, furniture factory, loom room (used for weaving and spinning), and the dairy farm which once sat behind the WVU farm fence that you can see in the distance. These associations were cooperatively owned and managed by the homesteaders. Drive around the cemetery to get to the next location.

13. U-13 Tres Stone House*

This Stone-style house was one of the third type of house built here. Made out of Preston County sandstone, they were erected between 1936 and 1937 and are distinctive for their smaller appearance. They too have four bedrooms. The Joe and Viola Tres family moved into this house after they had lived at M-12 for several months. Severe flooding there pushed the family to move to higher ground here in the late 1930s.

14. F-12 McNelis Hodgson House*

Another of the early homesteading families, the William and Viola "Chris" McNelis family, moved here in the summer of 1934. The McNelis family had two children: Louise McNelis Shafer and Jim McNelis. Before coming to Arthurdale, the family lived in Cassville, WV, in the Scotts Run area. Eleanor Roosevelt later helped their son Jim get a summer internship under Treasury Secretary Morgenthau. After serving in WWII he earned a journalism degree and spent 35 years as a journalist, 19 of them as Washington D. C. Bureau Chief. He credited Arthurdale with his success in life. Jim can also be seen dancing the Virginia Reel with Mrs. Roosevelt at the Arthurdale High School in 1938.

15. A-3 Brotherton Hodgson House*

You'll notice to the right up on the hill, the Hodgson house where the Ambrose and Bessie Brotherton family once lived. It has a retaining wall which also functions as a small patio for the house. Additions like these were common to repair the Hodgson houses and to make their foundations more structurally sound in the 1930s. These needed repairs were expensive and wide-ranging and were a major reason why the government decided to build sturdier houses like the Wagner and Stone ones after the first 50 Hodgsons.

16. Alphabetized Roads

You may have noticed that the roads in Arthurdale are named for almost all of the letters of the alphabet, from “A” to “Z’. This was common in many planned communities which needed to name a group of new streets in the past and to avoid controversy or disputes. The roads in Arthurdale also may have taken their naming pattern from the streets in Washington, D.C. where many roads also take their names from the alphabet and numbers.

17. B-5 Bonnette Hodgson House*

In 1936 Claude & Hazel Bonnette moved in and began their family. When Claude died at 92 in 2001 he and his wife were the last surviving homestead couple still living in Arthurdale. When Hazel died in 2015 at the age of 102, she was the last surviving homestead parent.

18. BB-2 and BB-3 Teachers' Stone Houses*

These two stone houses were occupied by Arthurdale teachers. They paid about $25 rent, which was more than the homesteaders, and were not expected to farm. However, they were expected to be involved in the daily life of the community, to help with making plans and solving problems. Many teachers originally came from Kentucky, and teachers from West Virginia arrived later.

19. X-3 Luzier Hodgson House*

The former home of B. B. Luzier is on the hill your right. B. B. was originally hired as a cook for the homesteaders when the men lived and worked out of the Arthur Mansion. During this time, the homesteaders (and hundreds of other laborers) were constructing roads, digging wells, planting fruit trees, and building the houses they would live in. He then applied to become a homesteader. His wife Rosella Luzier became the head of the Women's Club of Arthurdale and each year Eleanor Roosevelt donated funds for the club to buy Christmas gifts for the children of Arthurdale.

20. Arthurdale School Buildings

On this narrow road behind the present-day West Preston school, six school buildings once stood. Today, four are still standing including the Rec Center, the High School, the school's Administration building, and the Elementary School. Use the small turn around in front of the two-story Administration Building which once housed the superintendent, the industrial cannery, the homesteaders' bank, and the cafeteria.

21. Community Presbyterian Church

During the period that Arthurdale was a government project, there was no official church building in town, and nondenominational services were held in Center Hall or in the school cafeteria. Community Presbyterian Church was built in 1959 and 1960 by homesteaders and others who carved out the sandstone near the cemetery and built it during their free time. The church was dedicated in 1960 by Eleanor Roosevelt during her final trip to Arthurdale.

22. Arthurdale Inn

The Arthur mansion once stood close behind where the Inn is today. In 1937, the Inn was finished and Eleanor Roosevelt would often bring dignitaries and donors to the project to stay in the Arthurdale Inn. She had her own suite. Federal managers from Washington would stay there when checking on projects. The community used the building for celebratory dinners and events. It continued to operate as a restaurant and inn after the government left. Today, the inn is an administrative building for WV Caring, a hospice organization.This ends the primary part of the tour. If you would like to continue the tour to see a few more buildings, keep going.

23. G-2 Moats Hodgson House*

The G-2 Hodgson House was finished in 1934 and included land on both sides of G Road. The Floyd and Elizabeth Moats family moved out of G-2 in the late 1930s and it became one of ultimately twelve bunk houses for young members of the National Youth Administration. Here, 18 to 25 year olds learned skills in subjects like radio, stenography, machine shop, and welding. As WWII began, the classes focused more on war production work skills. They managed themselves under a youth governing system. Girls were also members of NYA but often stayed in their family homes.

24. O-1 Williams Hodgson House*

In 1934 Glenna Williams moved here as a teenager with parents Jack and Hattie and two sisters from Scotts Run. She earned 2 degrees and spent her working life as director of Christian education for the Presbyterian Churchin coal camps in 3 local counties. She moved back to Arthurdale when she retired in 1981 and became the driving force behind forming Arthurdale Heritage and served as the director for the first five years.

25. O-5 Turnley Hodgson House*

Richard and Carra Turnley were among the first residents of Arthurdale when they moved in on July 15, 1934. Their house on your left is now covered in blue siding. They raised four sons here, one of whom became manager of the Arthurdale Airstrip, a small regional airstrip used mainly in the 1950s.

26. P-4 Smith Stone House*

Warren & Ruth Smith moved to Arthurdale in 1939, one of the last families to come here. Their two daughters were born here. Warren worked with the US Postal Service and during WWII he wrote a weekly newsletter about area happenings. “A Letter from Home” was mailed to all active duty service men and women from the Valley District and bound copies are available in the Craft Shop.

27. Fairfax Cemetery

To your right behind the wooden split rail fence is the final resting place for Colonel John Fairfax, a prominent local politician, his first wife Mary Byrne and second wife Anne Franklin. Col. Fairfax was told by George Washington to "go west and grow up with the country," prompting him to move to this area of western Virginia at the time. Alongside the Fairfaxes lay about 200 unmarked graves for Black men and women who were enslaved by the family in the early to mid-1800s. These enslaved people lived on and worked the land that would become Arthurdale decades later.

This Tour is a Driving or Biking Tour.

Driving Tour of Arthurdale

Created by Arthurdale Heritage, Inc. on November 29th 2021, 9:57:00 pm.

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Revisit the 1930s in Arthurdale, West Virginia! Established in 1933 and homesteaded in 1934, Arthurdale is the nation's first New Deal Homestead Community. It originally featured 165 homes, a cooperative farm, health clinic, cemetery, inn, and its own progressive schools until 1947, when the federal government officially sold all its interest in the community. The homes marked with an asterisk (*) on this tour are privately owned. All visitors should be respectful of private property.

Entries on This Tour

Driving Tour of Arthurdale

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