It's all Trew: Cheap labor helped build Thompson Park

While our economy continually slips, more talk about creating jobs for the unemployed keeps popping up. This is not a new idea. In fact, each time a recession appears creating jobs is placed on the front burner no matter which party is in power. The year I was born, 1933, was the bottom of the Great Depression plus the start of the Dust Bowl. Less than 10 inches of rain was recorded that year, eliminating almost all crops. The government was buying starving cattle to help the drought-stricken livestock owners. My father signed up to work for the WPA, which was building Highway 83 from Perryton to Canadian. He shared a car with Grant Westbrook, a neighbor, and both showed up promptly at sunup each morning at the site. All freshly signed workers were handed a sledgehammer and placed behind a rock plow pulled by a Caterpillar tractor. The orders were, "bust every rock bigger than a baseball." As your seniority increased you could move up to easier jobs. As the pay was from $1 per day starting and up to $3 a day top wages, there was a lot of turnover...Amarillo Globe