WPA Administrator Was Originally From Bristol

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t receive from one to a dozen inquiries concerning some aspect of local history. I am glad to help in any measure that I can.
Not long ago, a middle-aged man called me and asked what I knew about the WPA. He had seen those three letters on a cornerstone of a local building and had no idea what they meant.
As it turned out, he was 43 years old. He is by no means alone. There are people much older who also know nothing of this depression era program.
The Works Project Administration came into being during The Great Depression to help with the widespread unemployment problem.
It did put many unemployed men to work, providing desperately needed income for the nation’s needy.
The employment rolls eventually reached into the millions. I personally remember how it was of great help to many in my native state of Arkansas.
Many public buildings and other projects were erected during the years that the WPA was in existence. Notable examples of the WPA work here in Bristol include Tennessee High School and the adjoining Stone Castle, both built in the mid 1930s.
I knew a man that worked on the Stone Castle. He had a large family and was desperate for a way to provide for them. He lived about five miles from this project. Every working day, including Saturday, he walked from his home to begin work at 7 a.m. He worked 10 full hours and then walked home. For all this labor, he received $1 per day (10 cents per hour).
That doesn’t seem much to us today, but in those days of very cheap prices, it kept his large family from starvation. This was typical of men all over America. I also remember having an uncle who advanced to the job of foreman with the WPA and was making $48 per month. We all thought he was getting rich. As a side note on the financial picture of the time, I recall that he bought a house during that time on the “installment plan” through W.B. Worthen and Co., Bankers of Little Rock, Ark. His monthly payment was $7.
What will likely be a great surprise to many, probably to most of my readers, is that the head of the WPA was a native of our own Bristol.
Francis Clark Harrington was born in Bristol, Va. in 1887. Little is known of his parentage or his early years. His father died when the boy was quite young. His widowed mother, who in some way was related to one of Bristol’s most prominent businessmen of that period, C. F. Gauthier, survived her husband by many years.
At one time, they lived at 401 Moore St. and last at 342 Moore. Both are buried in our local Glenwood Cemetery.
It is known that Mr. Harrington graduated from West Point in 1909, second in his class. For several years, he served with the U.S. Corp of Engineers.
Part of that time, he was in charge of maintenance of the Panama Canal.
Early in life, he married Eleanor Reyburn, a daughter of Mayor John E. Reyburn of Philadelphia, Pa. (who died in 1938).
In 1935, he became the assistant administrator of the WPA working under Harry Hopkins. In December 1938, President Roosevelt appointed Col. Harrington as the administrator of this program when Hopkins resigned.
He served until his death (caused by an abdominal operation) in New London, Conn., on Oct. 1, 1940. He is buried at West Point. His two children are yet living. They are William Stuart Harrington, of Sharon, Conn., and Mary Eleanor Harrington Schenke of Chatham, Mass.
Mrs. Schenke and a grandson of Col. Harrington, Carolous Robert Congdon, visited me here at Pleasant Hill in May of this year. From them, I learned much about this distinguished and nationally known “Son of Bristol.”

BUD PHILLIPS is a local historian and author. He can be reached at (276) 466-6435.