Week 12: The Farm Security Administration in Chandler

The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties, was one of the single worst man-made ecological disasters in American history. It was a period of time where drought and faulty farming methods in the Great Plains led to large dust storms that would blacken the sky for hours. These “black blizzards” would produce choking billows of dust that could cause pneumonia and other pulmonary diseases, and deposited dust as far away as New York City and Washington, D.C. The dirt would blow so hard and come so fast that the storms could bury farms and houses in a matter of hours. The Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres of land primarily in the panhandles of Texas, and Oklahoma, and smaller portions of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. It forced tens of thousands of people, often known as “Okies” because so many of them were from Oklahoma, to abandon their farms and migrate to better agricultural areas. Their destination, more often than not, was California, and one of the more popular routes brought Okies through Chandler.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as part of his “New Deal” program and initiatives sought to alleviate some of the suffering that was caused by the Dust Bowl. Among the most important projects was the Resettlement Administration (RA), which later transitioned into the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The FSA, created in 1937, was intended to benefit Okies who had lost their farms due to the persistent Dust Bowl conditions. It set up temporary housing for these farmers as they migrated to California in the hope of finding work. Ultimately, 95 such communities were constructed between Texas and California.

One of the FSA housing facilities was built on Erie Street in Chandler, just north of Chandler High School. The housing was designed by architects Burton Cairns and Vernon DeMars. The innovative buildings were constructed in 1937 and featured thick adobe walls, low pitched roofs, and wide eaves which together protected the apartments from the desert sun and heat. The buildings were angled to catch the prevailing breezes, which also helped to cool them. The windows were constructed of panels which could be opened to ventilate the apartments or closed to completely block the harsh sun. These buildings gained international acclaim when the Swiss architecture critic Albert Roth included the buildings in his 1940 book, “Modern Architecture,” which is the quintessential text of the Modernist Movement in architecture. Thirty two families called these structures home, and each family was given a half acre garden lot.

Another aspect of the FSA community in Chandler was the founding of a cooperative farm. Chandler Farms, as it was known, sat on 200 acres of land that the federal government bought from the Chandler Improvement Company in 1936. Migrant farmers who lived in the FSA housing worked the farm, where they fed livestock, milked cows, collected chicken eggs, grew cotton, and, in short, kept the farm running. The milk and eggs were sold locally for a small fee.

The housing and farm closed at the beginning of World War II. Later the housing was converted into the Hulet Apartments before being demolished. The farm was built over in subdivisions.