Prowers County Welfare Housing
Location: Lamar
County: Prowers County
Date Constructed: 1938-41
Built by: WPA
Architectural Description:
The housing complex is made up of five buildings arranged in an “H” formation. Four of the buildings are almost identical and are laid out in rows of two. The fifth building is perpendicular to the others and at the center of the arrangement. They are all constructed of quarry-faced ashlar limestone and have shake gable roofs with stepped-parapet ends. The four similar buildings were apartments and have eight rooms with doors and windows along both sides. Most of the doors and windows have been boarded up.
Historical Background:
The welfare-housing complex was constructed as a WPA project. The housing was intended for the “indigent and destitute of the county” and to replace the “unsatisfactory” housing for thirty to forty unemployable cases for which the county had been paying rent. The final cost of the project was over $50,000, which involved several different WPA applications. The different phases usually employed twenty to forty men. The stone was quarried only thirteen miles away near Clear Creek from the same quarry as the stone used for WPA projects Savage Stadium and the Southeast Colorado Junior College. Construction lasted from 1938 through 1941, and the first clients took residence in September 1939. A full apartment was only two rooms and was reserved for married couples. Bathroom facilities were housed in the utility building and were shared. In 1940, the function of one of the apartment buildings was changed to a storage building for the county’s surplus commodities. It stored dry goods, groceries, household goods, and perishables.