Our 1930s Government Outhouse
Every family from the Great Depression era has a few unforgettable stories, but my mother’s family has one that perfectly captures the intersection of American history and pure, stubborn independence.
When my mom was just a child in the 1930s, her family lived without any indoor plumbing whatsoever. In fact, they didn’t even have a basic outhouse. Whenever nature called, the family simply had to make the trek out into the woods behind the house.
But one day, a massive flatbed truck rolled up their road, carrying an unexpected gift from the United States government.
WPA workers unloading prefabricated privy structures from a flatbed delivery truck.. Source: New England Historical Society
The men on the truck were part of the WPA (Works Progress Administration), a massive Great Depression-era program designed to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. While the WPA built famous roads and bridges, they also had a lesser-known mission: the “community sanitation project.”
At the time, the government was on a crusade to wipe out diseases like hookworm and typhoid, which ran rampant in rural areas because of poor sanitation. Their solution was to build and distribute over two million standardized, fly-proof, concrete-vault privies across rural America.
The process was slick and fast. The WPA workers dug a deep pit right behind my mom’s house and lined it with a heavy, pre-cast concrete vault designed to seal everything off from the local groundwater. Then, they lowered a heavy concrete slab for the floor and simply bolted a brand-new, prefabricated wooden structure right on top of it.
By the standards of the 1930s, this thing was a luxury. It was clean, sturdy, and built to last. For a family used to trekking out into the elements, it should have been a massive upgrade.
A surviving WPA-era wooden privy structure.. Source: Arkansas Heritage
The government crew finished the installation, declared it ready for use, and drove away, likely feeling proud of a job well done.
My grandfather, however, had other ideas.
Whether it was a deep-seated distrust of federal intervention, a fierce streak of personal pride that refused government charity, or simply a practical eye for a sturdy piece of architecture, Grandfather put his foot down. The moment the dust settled from the WPA truck, he issued a strict decree: absolutely no one was allowed to use the new concrete privy.
Instead, he officially confiscated the brand-new building, kept it completely spotless from its intended purpose, and converted it into a secure storage shed.
While the rest of the family continued making their regular treks out into the woods, the pristine, government-issued privy spent its entire life housing tools, seeds, and hardware. It stood out behind the house as a monument to Grandfather’s stubbornness for decades, serving as a storage building until the day it was finally torn down.
To this day, it remains a classic piece of family lore—the time the United States government built us our very first bathroom, and Grandfather turned it into a closet.