By January 1939, there were still 2,620 in Denton County "on relief," meaning government handouts, according to C.A. Bridges' History of Denton, Texas, From Its Beginning to 1960.
In 1931, the salaries of Denton city employees were cut in half.
In the early fall of 1931, oil was 10 cents a barrel.
Denton bank assets on Oct. 13, 1928, were $2,041,804. On Oct. 4, 1929, they were $1,446,487. By Jan. 8, 1932, they were $1,136,381.
On March 24, 1932, the first federal loan in the county was approved: $115 to R.A. Stephens of Fort Worth, who had a farm on the west side of Denton County.
Brooks Drug Store offered circus tickets for 10 cents. H.M. Russell and Sons Co. sold dresses for $10. J.C. Penney had Easter hats for $2.98. In March of 1932, a five-room house two blocks from the North Texas State Teachers College was available for $15 a month. (Some landlords actually paid people to live in their vacant houses to keep them from being vandalized.)
Cigarettes were $1.19 a carton.
Ground meat was sometimes as low as 7 cents a pound. The grocer would give you the liver free.
In March 1935, Smith Motor Co. advertised that they would wash and grease your car, call for it and deliver it back for a dollar. At Penney's you could get a shirt and a tie for a dollar. Bath towels were 15 cents.
In April 1932, O.L. Fowler, secretary of the Denton Chamber of Commerce, organized a committee of 100 to canvass the entire city one Sunday afternoon asking people if they had odd jobs men could do for money. They found 587 hours of work for the unemployed.
The Denton Independent School District in 1932 had a deficit of $10,000.
A municipal garden produced corn, peas and other produce.
On March 12, 1932, the Dallas-Denton Interurban went broke. The rail service had debts of $780,000. Its assets, worth $2 million 10 years earlier, were sold for $500.
In 1932, some Denton streets were improved with WPA money from the federal government.
On July 25, 1933, the first cotton was plowed up in the county in an effort to raise market prices and to allow farmers to plant much-needed feed crops if the weather would cooperate, which it did not. By Aug. 8, 5 million hogs had been slaughtered in the nation, including many in Denton County. Many cows were killed as well because pastures were dried up and ranchers couldn't afford to buy feed.
In 1933, inspired by the National Recovery Act, Denton barbers met and raised the price of haircuts from 25 cents to 40 cents.
In March 1933, the Denton County National Bank and the First State Bank closed under the national bank holiday. The Retail Merchants Association said Denton stores would still accept checks to be cashed later. The banks were closed for five days.
In the 1933-34 school year, the No. 1 occupation of North Texas State Teachers College students' parents was farmers (499). No. 2 was unemployed (319).
In 1936, bread was six loaves for a quarter.
Relief started coming in 1934 with the New Deal programs, including the Works Progress Administration, which set up canneries in Denton, Lewisville and Pilot Point.
Unemployed were put to work on sewer and water lines, sidewalks, concrete bottoms and rock walls for creeks, street and highway improvements, a fish hatchery, surveying and library aid.
A Civilian Conservation Corps camp was set up on Malone Street in 1935. The CCC recruited young men to work on soil conservation projects such as building ponds and planting tree breaks on every section of land to reduce the wind that was taking away the soil and other projects.
The Rural Electrification Administration office, opened in 1937, later became the Denton County Electric Co-Op.
In 1936, it was reported that 109 miles of roads in Denton County had been graveled by the WPA.
But what really saved Denton was the North Texas State Teachers College, now the University of North Texas, and College of Industrial Arts, now Texas Woman's University.
The payrolls were reduced, but a large number of Denton residents were on the faculties or staffs of the two schools. (In 1936, a full professor at the teachers college made between $2,400 and $2,880 a year.)
At North Texas, four buildings were started in 1935 with a total cost of $568,000, of which $380,000 was from federal grants or loans.
In 1936, Stoddard Hall dorm was built and, in 1937, the Music Building and Science Building were built at C.I.A.
At what is now TWU, the Little Chapel-in-the-Woods was a federal project. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped dedicate the chapel in 1939. It was financed by $25,000 from the National Youth Administration - which also helped high school and college students stay in school.
And Denton survived.
KEITH SHELTON is a lifelong journalist, former managing editor at the Denton Record-Chronicle and a retired journalism professor from the University of North Texas.
