Bath House Ruins at Fort Belle Fontaine Park St. Louis MO

Fort Belle Fontaine Park - St. Louis MO This project took place over 4 years building retaining walls, paths, steps bath house and more. The grand steps are the highlight of this project. Once there was a lily pond and water fountains near the steps and they were was lighted. The steps are said to be haunted.

When this project was completed it was a popular swimming and picnicking destination to escape the summer heat. There was a sand beach on the Missouri River at that time. The river is much different today because of levee's and dams.

This area is rich in history. As you walk the grounds there are information displays. Lewis and Clark camped on these grounds.



This historic site has more to offer than the ruins left behind it is said to be haunted by a young officer killed in a duel or the spirit of someone that didn't want their remains moved to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.



"Over the years, many different visitors to the site have claimed to constantly see, hear, and feel things that they just could not explain. Oddly enough, the most eerie ghost stories center around the “Grand Staircase”. It is said that most of the pictures taken of the first or second tier of the staircase reveal the presence of what appears to be dark red smoke on the stairs. It has been said that people have experimented by taking photographs of the stairs using different kinds of cameras and film and in each instance, the anomalous red light always appears on the stairs.I guess it is possible that the red mist is a naturally occurring event. I have visited the site several times with my family and I have yet to find a “natural” source that could account for the frequency of the anomalous photographs taken at the site. On the other hand, light could actually be a supernatural manifestation from beyond the grave. Perhaps the spirit a young officer killed in a duel still walks the site searching for peace or one of the previous “unknown” occupants of the old fort’s cemetery decided that he or she did not want to be moved to the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. No matter what or who is responsible for these mysterious incidents, one thing remains unquestioned, they still continue even to this day."



Source http:--www.militaryghosts.com-fortbelle.html







More about the controversial WPA Program from wikipedia:

" The Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unemployed people (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects,[1] including the construction of public buildings and roads. In much smaller but more famous projects the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects.[1]

Almost every community in the United States had a new park, bridge or school constructed by the agency. The WPA's initial appropriation in 1935 was for $4.9 billion (about 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP), and in total it spent $13.4 billion.[2]

At its peak in 1938, it provided paid jobs for three million unemployed men and women, as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration. Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States. Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA provided almost eight million jobs.[3] Full employment, which emerged as a national goal around 1944, was not the WPA goal. It tried to provide one paid job for all families in which the breadwinner suffered long-term unemployment.[4]

The WPA was a national program that operated its own projects in cooperation with state and local governments, which provided 10%-30% of the costs. WPA sometimes took over state and local relief programs that had originated in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) or Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) programs.[5]

Liquidated on June 30, 1943, as a result of low unemployment due to the worker shortage of World War II, the WPA provided millions of Americans with jobs for 8 years.[6] Most people who needed a job were eligible for at least some of its positions.[7] Hourly wages were typically set to the prevailing wages in each area.[8] But, workers could not be paid for more than 30 hours a week. Before 1940, to meet the objections of the labor unions,[which?] the programs provided very little training to teach new skills to workers."

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