Between 1933 and 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal created thirty-four communities under the Division of Subsistence Homesteads (DSH). Only four were in the Far West: Phoenix, Arizona; El Monte and San Fernando, California; and Longview, Washington. The DSH, funded at $25 million, pledged to organize pilot programs showing how the country could benefit from semirural neighborhoods with part-time farming. Allocation of funds was not made on the basis of state equality, and the program was decidedly not a relief effort aimed toward the unemployed. Demonstration of support from a state college was a decided plus. Each project would be initiated at the state level and administered through a nonprofit corporation. Successful applicants would offer a combination of part-time employment opportunities, fertile soil for part-time farming, and locations connected to the services of established cities. DSH director Milburn L. Wilson stated:

A subsistence homestead denotes a house and out buildings located upon a plot of land on which can be grown a large portion of foodstuffs required by the homestead family. It signifies production for home consumption and not for commercial sale. In that it provides for subsistence alone, it carries with it the corollary that cash income must be drawn from some outside source. The central motive of the subsistence homestead program, therefore, is to demonstrate the economic value of a livelihood which combines part-time wage work and part-time gardening or farming.

The DSH existed independently for only two years before being subsumed by the Resettlement Administration (RA), which survived for another two years before transitioning into the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and then into the federal Public Housing Authority (PHA). In many ways, the western manifestations of the DSH’s work were among its most successful and pure. In California the prior existence of a successful part-time farming program headed by a Los Angeles Times columnist led to Southern California’s two subsistence homestead projects. In Arizona the personal and political connections of Congresswoman Isabella Greenway ensured a subsistence homestead project for Phoenix. In Washington the combination of a proactive governor, a determined town, and the efforts of a college professor brought the Longview subsistence homesteads to fruition.

Clarence Martin, Washington’s Democratic governor, wasted little time getting his state on the list of those interested in the program, and as early as mid August 1933 he sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes identifying Washington as eager to be a site for DSH projects. Unbeknownst to Governor Martin, a week earlier a letter from the manager of the Washington State Emergency Relief Commission had already reached M. L. Wilson’s desk asking for, "regulations, circulars, state quotas, etc." Numerous requests from private citizens and civic organizations followed. Wilson appreciated the attention, which he accepted as an endorsement of the New Deal. The reward for this early expression of support came in October 1933 when Wilson set aside $300,000 dollars for homesteads in Washington. By that time, Martin had named an Emergency Washington Subsistence Homestead Committee to handle the public’s response, disseminate information, select sites, and draw up a proposal for one, or possibly two, subsistence homestead communities. Simultaneously, Edward C. Johnson, dean of the Washington State College of Agriculture in Pullman, volunteered his time to field questions from boosters and interested homesteaders across the state. He also made the college’s resources available to the undertaking, noting, "We have the climate, the products of forest and farm, splendid highways, and limitless potential power."

Interest spiked throughout the state. Charles Ernst, chairman of the governor’s committee, spearheaded the project. This was not Ernst’s first foray into studying the potential of subsistence homesteading. In February 1933, a month before Roosevelt’s inauguration, Ernst requested the help of E. O. Holland, president of Washington State College, "in considering the whole matter of Back to the Land movements, Sustenance Gardens, Garden seeds etcetera." Holland replied that Professor Rex Willard, head of the college’s Department of Farm Management and Agricultural Economics, was the man for the job.

Ernst contacted Willard and soon came to rely on his expertise to study land throughout the state and determine the most desirable agricultural, economic, and geographic locations for subsistence homestead projects. Willard was a known authority on such land issues and was already a principal in a wheat project for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. His expertise lent credibility and strategic input to the state’s application. Willard also knew director Wilson fairly well, the two of them having attended many of the same conferences. Initially Willard hesitated to get involved with the project, reporting to Dean Johnson that he felt his other duties prevented him from devoting time to this new federal project. But he soon changed his mind. Wilson expressed satisfaction with the governor’s choices and offered an especially favorable opinion of Willard: "He is a person who strikes straight from the shoulder and at times is not as diplomatic as he might be, but I have always regarded him as a very capable person." With thousands of applications coming into the DSH office, it was critical for a state to have the director’s support.

As word of the subsistence homestead program spread, Washingtonians jockeyed for the opportunity to participate. Though their reasons ran the gamut from being altruistic to self-serving, individual citizens, municipal organizations, and private companies offered assistance and suggestions. John B. Renshaw volunteered his 120-acre parcel of land in Pend Oreille County for $3,000 because at age 77, "My wife and I are getting old and can no longer do the farm work." The Kiwanis Club of Cle Elum offered its city as a desirable location. Likewise, civic organizations in Seattle, Kennewick, Yakima, and Wenatchee sent proposals. The Puget Mill Company submitted a lengthy, if one-sided, proposal suggesting that building 40 country homes near the Everett mill would benefit workers. A Seattle group calling itself the Puget Sound Gardens Corporation urged the DSH, in a meticulously detailed proposal, to establish homesteads for 300 families on 1,500 acres in western Washington. The most striking aspect of the Puget Sound Gardens proposal centered on the idea that the homesteaders would work in the angora wool industry, with each homesteader owning between 400 and 1,000 "woolers" (Angora rabbits).

The Chehalis Chamber of Commerce sent its homestead application directly to M. L. Wilson, without going through the proper vetting procedure. Professor Willard thought the proposal little more than an appeal for "a government commitment to the plywood industry," adding, "If we were to undertake to examine every project and application that has been submitted, we would do nothing else for a long period of time." And time was of the essence.

Supporters of subsistence homesteads in Longview understood the nature of the DSH program and therefore offered a fully developed proposal that was quite different from those of its competitors. A planned community of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, Longview threw all its efforts into siting the homestead project in the 10-year-old city in southwestern Washington at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers. A new part-time farming district fit with the direction in which the company hoped to see the city expand. As urban historian Carl Abbott explained, Longview was a city that touted its climate, opportunities, beauty, permanence, cleanliness, morality, development potential, and idyllic setting. More likely than not, officials in the nation’s capital knew of its national recognition as a planned community, highlighted as it was in various city planning publications, plus the Literary Digest and the Saturday Evening Post.

The Depression hit Longview and its lumber industry hard. When the county welfare office opened in April 1933, a line of unemployed stretched for blocks. Longview’s Skidville, comprising temporary homes on skids that had functioned as provisional housing while the city was being developed in 1923, was now a dilapidated refuge for the desperately poor. None of that, however, stopped large numbers of migrants from coming to the Pacific Northwest looking for timber jobs.

Although Longview’s selection may have been a forgone conclusion, the fact remains that only Longview succeeded in working closely with the governor’s committee to meet all the DSH’s requirements. And Longview knew how to conduct an effective lobbying campaign. Its program included assistance from the chamber of commerce, the Longview Daily News, local businesses, and, perhaps most important, politically connected representatives from the Northern Pacific Railway’s Agricultural Development Office. The Longview committee supplemented its application with numerous letters of support, including some from Long-Bell Lumber Company, Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Mount Solo Grange, and Longview Fiber Company. The city’s campaign plus the railroad’s influence gave Longview a distinct advantage over other Washington communities.

On November 29, 1933, after surveying prospective sites statewide, Rex Willard tentatively named Longview as the state’s most promising homestead site. Unfortunately, he also mentioned in his report that he had not seriously considered any of the public’s voluntary proposals. People across the state who had invested enthusiasm and resources in the application process did not appreciate being dismissed this way and questioned the motives behind the proposed selection of Longview. Did Willard have "friends and past associates" in the city? C. J. Zintheo, a former professor of M. L. Wilson’s, informed the governor’s committee that "as a soil expert Prof. Rex Willard is a first class mud slinger." Zintheo may have had an ulterior motive, inasmuch as he had submitted his own idea to the committee on behalf of the City Wide League of Greater Seattle. His plan called for turning an old incinerator into a working factory where fir tree stumps from 150,000 homesteader’s home sites near Renton would become marketable "oils, acids, gas, and charcoal." Today, that factory site is Gas Works Park on the shores of Lake Union.

Criticism over site selection did not stop when, in December, Willard announced Longview as his final recommendation. Though it might have irked some folks, Longview was a prime location for the division’s experiment, and no credible information indicates that Willard made his recommendation with anything but detached indifference. He took into account the type and quality of soil and considered employment opportunities, recreation, education, transportation, and the availability of city services such as water and electricity. If the division had desired a relief project, then Seattle might have been more deserving. But the DSH was not about relief. As a demonstration project for industry, workers, and part-time farming, Longview was the most suitable choice. The town offered the added benefit of showcasing the experimental community to residents of both Washington and Oregon, which lay just across the Columbia River.

The state committee authorized Willard to file the required paperwork with the DSH. According to the procedures, Longview would form a local corporation, and the DSH would provide a loan of $160,532. The corporation would then construct a 60-homestead community on 141 acres purchased from the Long-Bell Lumber Company about three miles west of Longview’s city center. Willard estimated the average per unit cost at $2,675.55.

The land purchase sparked a second round of complaints regarding the Longview site’s suitability. Rumors surfaced that the Long-Bell Lumber Company’s $200-per-acre price for the land was excessively high. When these stories filtered back to committeeman Charles Ernst, he took quick action by confidentially asking the Cowlitz County Welfare Board’s director to investigate. This inquiry revealed that, in fact, the price was uncommonly low, well below the market value of $500 to $600 per acre. The owners, it seemed, had agreed to sell the land at a loss to show support for the homestead project.

Rebuffed, troublemakers decided to send messages directly to M. L. Wilson in Washington, D.C., suggesting that the land purchased was prone to flooding. Curious, Wilson directed an inquiry to the Longview Chamber of Commerce. The chamber acknowledged that heavy rains could send the Cowlitz River over its banks, and there had been a recent alarm about a possible breach of the Cowlitz Dike. The danger had been contained with a barnful of hay and several truckloads of rock, and Longview had not flooded.

Shortly thereafter, on March 4, 1934, Wilson telegrammed state officials with the news that its application had been approved. The public announcement came on March 18 in a telegram from Washington’s senior United States senator, Clarence Dill. The senator proudly announced Secretary Harold Ickes’s authorization of $160,000, saying that homesteads would supplement "the cash income of employees of various diversified industries which are located at Longview."

As word made its way around the state, letters and telegrams of congratulations poured into the governor’s office in Olympia and the Longview Chamber of Commerce. With them came the first inquiries about how to join the community. Letters from people seeking information inundated the Homestead Committee offices in Olympia. Some people mailed their appeals directly to President Roosevelt.

I am writing in regards to the Subsistence Homestead Plan.... We have a large family of six children and this town life is not the thing for them. I am writing this so you can get in touch with me as soon as anything is ready.
-Oscar Bond

One of the main requirements was employment, which meant that many could not be considered for the homestead program. The division’s goal was to begin with the urban employed and move toward reestablishing the working and living environment of rural areas.

Once Washington had secured its homestead project, the role of state government lessened while federal oversight increased. The DSH sent its own project manager, Alfred E. West, an engineer and construction expert from Roanoke, Virginia. After establishing his project headquarters in the Longview post office building, West called his first meeting with the corporation’s board of directors. Sending a new project manager answered local pleas for action, but bringing in an outsider was contrary to the division’s overall policy of employing local people. It is true that both Charles Ernst and Rex Willard, the two most likely candidates, already had full-time jobs and could not do more. Happily, West impressed city officials with his style-so much so, in fact, that an advisory committee of local representatives disbanded.

To West’s disappointment, the summer months slipped away with little work taking place on the site, which had been named Columbia Valley Gardens. Meetings consumed most of his time as the DSH constantly reinvented itself. Annoyed with idleness and wanting to show the community some concrete progress, West ordered the construction of roads to the building site and then boldly announced that he was putting 114 men from the Washington Emergency Relief Administration on the site to work "uninterrupted until finished." West’s intentions were good and his optimism refreshing. Knowing the value of good public relations, he next appointed an architect. The division’s policy required a local architect, a person who understood the regional issues of home construction. In early August 1934, West selected R. V. Weatherby, an area native with an established reputation. Within a week Weatherby sent officials in Washington, D.C., preliminary sketches of 10 colonial-style houses.

West called a public meeting to update the citizenry. Highlighting the 10 house plans, he pointed out that by using varying exterior sidings and color schemes, it would be "almost impossible" to find any two houses alike. The frame homes had shingled roofs, concrete foundations, and four to six rooms. He detailed the amenities of each dwelling, dubbing the homes "little estates." Each had spacious living quarters, an attached garage, and a floor plan that would easily convert for adding extra rooms. "The greatest criticism I have heard of this project is that it is in Longview and not my town," commented one official from the adjacent community of Kelso. To West’s great pleasure, an article in The Christian Science Monitor favorably introduced all of America to the first-class work being done in Longview.

Work on the project slowed as a third round of sniping from Longview opponents made its way to Washington, D.C. Rex Willard alerted officials in Longview with this terse message: "You may be interested to know that the subsistence homesteads crowd in Washington are all hot and bothered some more about the quality of land under consideration." From his experience testing the soil, Willard knew the accusations were unfounded. A complicating factor was that federal officials could no longer lay their hands on Willard’s original soil report. He had written it longhand while riding on a train, then sent it to Washington, D.C., where it disappeared into the New Deal files.

West was convinced that the DSH only considered the complaint because "someone is trying to promote a free trip out here." Indeed, just as West predicted, J. H. Jenkins, a division soil expert, and Charlotte Smith, a secretary and confidant to Secretary Ickes, traveled to Longview for a firsthand site inspection. Jenkins solemnly declared the soil first-rate and gave West the go-ahead to call for construction bids. Meanwhile, since Willard was not available to replicate his work, two other experts came by train from Pullman to prepare another report. Professors L. J. Smith, head of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, and C. L. Vincent of the Department of Horticulture arrived in Longview in January 1935. Their joint inspection of the tract resulted in a favorable report, and everyone in Longview breathed a sigh of relief.

When in the middle of March 1935 West opened the bids for construction of 60 homes, he expected figures in the $100,000 to $120,000 range. The Hoffman Construction Company of Portland won the contract with a low bid of $119,234, beating out companies from Tacoma, Seattle, and even Dallas, Texas, with bids ranging from $122,658 to $150,499. Founded in 1922, Hoffman Construction had a deserved reputation for bringing projects in on time and under budget. Lee Hoffman’s work could be seen all around the Portland metropolitan area in projects such as the Heathman Hotel, the Public Service Building, and the Portland Art Museum. Coincidentally, Hoffman Construction had worked side-by-side with architect R. V. Weatherby on the Longview post office building.

Honoring their contract to deliver a completed project within 120 days proved difficult. During the first week construction halted twice when the local carpenters and joiners union stopped work to renegotiate wages. Other delays came when a lumber strike prevented building materials from being delivered to the site, a contractor halted work when his paycheck was held up because the DSH had been reassigned under the RA, and a subcontractor neglected to obtain the proper building permit.

Toward the end of summer site visitation increased, especially on Sundays, as curiosity seekers came to view New Deal money at work. West usually made himself available to answer questions and distribute applications while Lee Hoffman pleaded with people to stop "tramping" around the unfinished homes. As Hoffman Construction placed finishing touches on some of the houses at the end of September, residents began moving in. Finally, on October 27, 1935, six months after construction began and two years after the initial proposal, everything was complete. Thousands of people, including federal, state, and local government representatives, gathered for a joyous dedication ceremony. Although Eleanor Roosevelt declined an invitation to the event, Governor Martin accepted. Regrettably, Alfred West, the man who had devoted so much time and effort to the project, could not participate in the festivities. He had left Longview earlier in the month after being reassigned. His assistant, Erma Johnston, took over as community manager, a position she held for the next seven years.

The editor of the Port Angeles newspaper snooped around the site and reported to his readers,

This writer went out to the resettlement tracts Friday morning, secretly expecting to find a modified Matanuska, with houses shaped alike, painted the same color and standing like the toy soldier factory towns or coal-mine towns of other days. He remained to give...a pat on their backs for what appears to be a practical, workable venture that should prove an example for realtors, industries and others to follow.

The most striking recognition of the homes’ quality-and the greatest compliment to the project designers-came when municipal officials in Louisville, Kentucky, requested the house plans for its own subsistence homestead project and wanted to imitate them. This was just the sort of cross-pollination the DSH had hoped these experimental projects would initiate.

DSH regulations urged the selection of people with steady work histories who were cooperative and would get along with their neighbors, knew how to farm, and could raise their own livestock. A pool of applicants started to form when the project was tentatively announced in November 1933. In March 1934, Charles Ernst toyed with the selection process, stressing that homesteaders would be families living in the western Washington lowlands. This preferential provision seemed exclusionary, but it was actually necessary because of the diversity of farming techniques employed on Washington farmlands. Alfred West added the final touches in mid-August 1934 by naming a selection committee. With his committee in place, West called a public meeting in the Longview Public Library to answer questions and place applications into people’s hands. Two hundred people attended. Each received an illustrated layout of the project, complete with descriptions of the landscaping, building designs, and the variety of products one could produce in the garden. West also gave prospective residents a breakdown of the expenditures, estimating that the homesteads would cost $2,700 yet hold a value of $4,000.

Fewer than half of those in attendance filled out applications. Through conversations with citizens, West came to understand an irony imposed on the entire homestead program: the project was not a relief program, so people who needed relief were not eligible, yet many of those who were eligible wanted to avoid the project because it seemed like relief. Even West’s repeated reassurances that the homesteads were for "substantial citizens," with full- or part-time employment, went unheeded. The public’s misconception was perpetuated, in part, by the unfortunate decision to entrust the county welfare office with the job of distributing project information. By mid October, as misunderstandings prevailed, a mere 90 completed applications sat in West’s file cabinet. Initially, DSH sought people with plumbing or carpentry skills, food preservation abilities, fire prevention knowledge, poultry raising experience, and so on. In reality, these strict guidelines were never used, but as word leaked out about expected qualifications, the line of potential applicants thinned.

Even though a relatively small number of people submitted applications, the process closed on schedule in mid November 1934, and thereafter members of the Longview selection committee worked evenings to complete its recommendations. Although the local committee coordinated the application process, officials in Washington, D.C., made the final decision. To the townspeople, this was another sticking point. They could work with the local selection committee but they did not favor sending their applications to federal bureaucrats.

A profile of the first 36 families selected for the project found that they were an unusually similar-perhaps uncomfortably so-group of people coming largely from the same community church, with only one Catholic, one Mormon, and one Episcopalian among them. In terms of national origin, the group was 100 percent American, though two families had members who were foreign-born. With the exception of a barber, whose wife worked in a soda fountain, everyone worked for one of the two large lumber companies, Long-Bell or Weyerhaeuser. In order to find families for the remaining homesteads, the DHS extended the application process. That, coupled with added opportunities to clarify the nature of the project to prospective homesteaders, allowed West to secure over 450 applications for 60 homes, at last providing him with a more-than-adequate pool.

The people chosen to receive homesteads at Longview were a select group. Their annual salaries ranged from $700 to $1,200, with an average of approximately $1,059. Most of the men were employed in forest products industries. At least one person in every household demonstrated familiarity with farming or gardening although, oddly, no one in the pilot group had grown up on a farm.

To sustain the momentum of initial enthusiasm-but also in response to regulations imposed by the Resettlement Authority, the agency to which the DSH had been transferred-in April 1936 residents organized a nonprofit association, Longview Subsistence Homesteads, Inc. The RA sold the entire project-excluding the water system and roads, which belonged to the city and county-to this non-stock corporation for $175,900, an amount nearly equivalent to the funds expended by the government. Henceforth the association would collect the residents’ monthly mortgage payments, which, based on a 40-year commitment at 3 percent interest, amounted to approximately $13 per household.

Formation of the association made the community a self-sufficient entity, allowing the government to distance itself from the project. The various agencies that subsequently took over the DSH’s oversight duties continued to guide the homesteaders by providing advice, instruction, and legal counsel. They also tried to give residents a sense of autonomy, perhaps more autonomy than DSH officials would have encouraged. Turnover in Columbia Valley Gardens during the first decade was almost nil. The homesteads matured through a combination of continuing federal presence and the homesteaders’ own interest in maintaining the experiment’s integrity. The association’s board of directors actually ran the homesteads, and all indications are that they did an exceptional job. For example, only a few years after organizing, it became possible for the association to invest $5,000 in government securities. Throughout its history, the association often held surplus funds, which it conservatively invested for the association’s contingency budget.

Impressed with the homesteads and the added attractiveness they brought to the city, the people of Longview vigorously supported an attempt by John McClelland, the local newspaper publisher and editor, to expand the endeavor to 200 units. The chamber of commerce and local industry officials supported the proposal. Options were secured to purchase additional land, but expansion fell through after a change in the federal agenda and several agency reassignments. Neither the RA nor the FSA was interested in expanding the project, mainly because it did not fit with their current schema. The homesteads were an inheritance from the demise of the DSH-and not an especially welcome one. The federal government removed itself completely from the project’s operations in 1942 and henceforth the homestead association was free to function as it saw fit. The tract remained an ideal place to live and continued to generate a cooperative atmosphere of rural neighborliness. In fact, many homes have not significantly changed over the past seven decades, and most still have resisted subdividing their original large plots of land. Best of all, the homesteads are recognized for their unique history, even if that history has not been fully understood.

Robert M. Carriker is an associate professor of history, director of Public History Studies, and head of the Department of History, Geography, and Philosophy at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. This article excerpted from his forthcoming work, Urban Farming in the West: A New Deal Experiment in Subsistence Homesteads, with permission from the University of Arizona Press.