BLOOMINGTON - Some critics of President Obama's federal stimulus package worry tax dollars will be spent on "make-work" projects with few or no long-term benefits. | Local stimulus projects | Photo gallery

But a look back to the 1930s shows how President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, also designed to put people back to work, made lasting contributions to life in Central Illinois.

That was the conclusion historian Sandra Harmon reached while doing research for an exhibit on the Great Depression that was displayed at the McLean County Museum of History a few years ago on the 75th anniversary of the stock market crash.

"I'm sure somebody might call some of it 'make work,'" said Harmon, a professor emeritus from Illinois State University, during a recent interview.

But Harmon stressed workers feeling the pinch of layoffs and furloughs in the region today still enjoy the fruits of labor that resulted from government programs put in place three-quarters of a century ago. From Starved Rock Lodge to post offices, an airport and a university stadium, the Civil Works Administration, the Work Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps and other agencies left a significant mark on the landscape while giving jobs to many of the 18 percent of the McLean County workers who were unemployed by 1935.

She cited a long list of key brick and mortar projects completed during the Depression years. Following is a summary of some of them:

Public workers

Lick a stamp and pay a visit to the Normal Post Office, which was built by WPA workers. They also built the old Bloomington Post Office that is now part of Second Presbyterian Church in downtown Bloomington, Harmon said. That project was languishing on the drawing board when President Herbert Hoover was still in the White House, but Roosevelt kicked it and others into high gear to get people working, she said.

Other construction projects included Sheridan School in Bloomington, the former Lincoln School (now the city of Bloomington's Lincoln Leisure Center), repairs at the former Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Children's Home in Normal and a storm sewer project in the southeast part of Bloomington, she said.

The Civil Works Act gave jobs to more than 2,200 men and women on at least 85 projects in McLean County.

If you've flown from the Central Illinois Regional Airport, you've benefited from their work. CWA projects required local money to be put in the kitty before federal funds were released.

At the time, a group of Bloomington-Normal businessmen paid $25,000 for the original 164-acre tract two miles east of town on Illinois 9 for what was then the new municipal airport. More than $100,000 arrived from Washington to pay for the labor.

CWP workers also tore up unused street-car tracks throughout the Twin Cities. They widened shoulders on nearly every state route. They repaired, graded and poured gravel on county roads. They dug sewers in Normal, repaired school buildings, planted trees, did landscaping at Lake Bloomington and repaired bathhouses at the lake and at Bloomington's Miller Park. They also made structural improvements to buildings at both Illinois State Normal and Illinois Wesleyan universities.

CWP also put women to work making garments and binding books.

Ever watch a football game at Wilder Field Stadium at IWU? It was a Depression-era work project that cost $200,000 at the time. Depression-era workers also built Bloomington's Highland Golf Course.

A different place

McLean County was much different 75 years ago.

For one thing, only 73,000 people lived here - less than half the number living here today. In 1930, nearly half the folks lived outside the Twin Cities compared with about 25 percent today. Farms were critical in those hard times when food costs were rock bottom.

Workers, who were housed at two large CCC government-run camps near LeRoy and Congerville, helped do soil conservation projects and planted trees as wind breaks.

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration helped build grain bins across the county to store corn in the event of shortages and to help control farm prices.

The Rural Electrification Administration helped bring electricity to members of the newly formed Corn Belt Electric Co-operative.

And, wages weren't the only way of paying workers.

Bill Kemp, archivist/librarian of the McLean County Museum of History, said the streets superintendent of Bloomington had jobless men straighten Sugar Creek; in exchange the workers' past-due water bills were forgiven.

Other jobs that got people back to work had more intangible results, but people who benefited think they were important just the same.

For example, William Linneman, professor emeritus of English at ISU, as a young boy would go to Miller Park and play with children in programs run by out-of-work teachers.

"They had all kinds of activities for little kids," said Linneman, who fondly remembers teachers who used part of their meager salaries to buy clothes for their students who needed them.

Harmon noted cooks were hired to start the very first school lunch programs that are still feeding children today. The National Youth Administration started work-study programs that are still important on college campuses.

That Normal Post Office project? A government-sponsored artist painted the mural that remains in place today.

Other people were hired to inventory artifacts of the McLean County Historical Society and to index back issues of The Pantagraph still open to the public at libraries.

Was that all just "make work?" No, said Harmon.

"It kept families together, fed, clothed, housed," she said. "A lot of them might have fallen apart without that kind of employment."

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This time around

Following are some of the area road construction projects that may be funded under the federal stimulus program. Other federal funds are being sought to expand police protection and improve water supply systems and parks.

• $2 million toward construction of an overpass on Interstate 55 at Towanda.

• $1.4 million to build a bridge over Sugar Creek at Virginia Avenue in Normal and to upgrade Virginia between Main Street and Franklin Avenue.

• $1.45 million to improve streets in Bloomington, including resurfacing Ireland Grove Road from Veterans Parkway to the east end of the Little Kickapoo Creek bridge; and adding signals at College Avenue and Hershey Road.

• $4.2 million to expand Towanda Barnes Road from Fort Jesse to Raab roads from two lanes to five, and adding traffic signals at Raab.

• $680,000 to resurface a section of Horse Farm Road, south of LeRoy.

• $1 million to improve/widen Pipeline Road from Ziebarth Road to Hudson Road.

• $400,000 to Lincoln-based Community Action Partnership of Illinois for social service programs in Logan, DeWitt, Mason, Menard, Piatt and Fulton counties.

• $360,000 to upgrade Deerfield Road in Pontiac.

• $623,000 for road work in rural Livingston County, including replacing two bridges on Weston Blacktop, and upgrading part of Ancona Blacktop.