ARTHURDALE — From the road, House E-15 in Arthurdale looks like any other home in the area. Once you step inside, the illusion is dispelled. You are back to the 1930s.
“This was a very modern home for its time,” Meredith Dreistadt, AmeriCorps tour guide at Arthurdale Heritage, said. “All of the homes had electricity, an indoor bathroom and a refrigerator. Congress thought a refrigerator was a frivolity, but First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt pushed for it and got them.”
Dreistadt was talking about one of the 165 homes built in Arthurdale under the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt. The four-bedroom house can be toured at Arthurdale Heritage. She said 160 of the homes are still in use.
Walking in the side door, you pass a coal furnace on the right. The small door to the left is a coal closet. Sitting in the entrance way is also a “modern” ringer washing machine. Next to the furnace is a door to the right leading to the kitchen, with a cooking stove that used coal for heat and a small square refrigerator.
The hallway goes on and opens into a living room/ dining area, and stairs go up into the bedrooms.
“The house doesn’t have a basement. It was built basically on a concrete slab,” Dreistadt said. “That is why it has a root cellar outside for food storage.”
There were factories providing jobs for the New Deal residents. A school was also close to the homes and allowed children to walk to and from school.
“The factories were here all through World War II and a lot of the people worked at the nearby furniture factory,” Dreistadt said.
“Each home came with two to five acres of land,” she said. “You farmed your land and worked. One resident said folks would come in droves during the 30s to see what the government built here. This was the first government housing project. He said it was like living in a fish bowl.”
Dreistadt said a few descendants of the original home owners still live in the houses. “It’s not always their parents’ home they live in, but they still live here.”
The federal government liquidated its holdings in Arthurdale in 1947. All homes and community buildings were sold to private ownership.
In 1984, the community celebrated the 50th anniversary of its homesteading.
This celebration resulted in the establishment of Arthurdale Heritage Inc., whose mission is to preserve the historic community of Arthurdale.
Dreistadt said the New Deal Festival will open up tours in the first house built on the land. She said it is a one-story Cape Cod home with a basement. The house was a prefabricated home built in Massachusetts by the E.F. Hodgson Co.
“It came with a coal furnace, electricity and a refrigerator, but it was smaller than the E-15 Anderson home. The Anderson home was the answer to making the houses more open and larger.”
Darlene Bolyard, director of Arthurdale Heritage, said during Preston County History Day county residents can tour the homes free of charge.
