New Mexico New Deal Sites June 2019 - Photo #211 - Santa Fe River Park and Don Gaspar Bridge

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Santa Fe NM 23 June 2019: Santa Fe River Park, with the Santa Fe River and CCC-built stonework and landscaping. "The Santa Fe River Park includes flagstone walkways, a stone-lined acequia channel, picnic tables, limestone-block walls lining the banks and thousands of trees. The park was developed in several phases, at undetermined costs, by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1935 and 1940. David Kammer, an Albuquerque historian, said Stephen DeBoer, a landscape architect who designed Denver's park system, originally envisioned the park stretching some 20 miles, all the way to La Bajada. The New Deal made money available for state parks, but initially New Mexico had no state parks, so a system had to be created, beginning with the Santa Fe River Park and Hyde Memorial State Park. The first major task was straightening the river's meandering path through downtown Santa Fe."[1]
References
  1. Tom Sharpe, "New Deal's legacy: The face of New Mexico", The Santa Fe New Mexican, April 6, 2008.
  2. Kathryn A. Flynn, Public Art and Architecture in New Mexico 1933-1943: A guide to the New Deal Legacy, Sunstone Press (2012), p.129: "The river area running through downtown Santa Fe along Alameda Street with rock embankments was done by the WPA and CCC." Or maybe just the CCC.