Qualla: Tygart Valley Homesteads Historic District

Tygart Valley Homesteads Historic District: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Three hundred and thirty-seven buildings, scattered across a quiet West Virginia valley, all built for the same reason: the country had run out of work. In 1934, with the Great Depression grinding on and millions of Americans living in tents, shacks, and hollow promises, Franklin Roosevelt's administration tried something unusual here near Dailey. Buy the land. Build the houses. Give families a fresh start with a garden plot, a workshop, and a community center. The Tygart Valley Homesteads was the largest of three such experiments in West Virginia, and it remains the most visible reminder that the New Deal did not just dig ditches and paint murals - it built entire neighborhoods, one A-frame and barn house at a time.

Tygart Valley Homesteads Historic District: A Federal Town from Scratch

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The plan was ambitious enough to sound naive. Take families displaced by mine closures, failed farms, and shuttered factories. Settle them in a planned community where each household received a modest Colonial Revival house, a garden, and access to a community farm, woodworking s...

Tygart Valley Homesteads Historic District: The Three Sisters of West Virginia

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tygart Valley was one of three New Deal resettlement communities in the state. Arthurdale, the most famous, became Eleanor Roosevelt's personal cause, drawing reporters and critics from Washington. Eleanor, downstate near the Kanawha, took its name from the First Lady herself. Ty...

Tygart Valley Homesteads Historic District: Working the Cooperative

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Life in the homesteads ran on a particular rhythm. Mornings might find a homesteader at the Community Farm tending shared crops, or at the Woodworking Shop turning out furniture for sale beyond the valley. The Weaving Shop, one of the earliest buildings here, produced textiles th...

Tygart Valley Homesteads Historic District: What Survives

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Drive through the district today and the architecture announces itself. The A-frames and barn houses sit on generous lots, their Colonial Revival details - simple trim, modest proportions, painted clapboards - distinctly of their era. The Dailey Community Center still stands. So ...