Henderson daily dispatch., 1937-07-13
ROANOKE ISLAND TO
HONOR WPA EFFORT
Celebration Tomorrow Will
Be in Gratitude for Fed
eral Help
Daily Dispatch Bureau.
In the Sir Walter Hotel.


Raleigh, July ia special day has
been set aside on Roanoke Island this
week to pay especial tribute to the
Works Progress Administration and
the part it has played in helping the
Roanoke Island Colony Memorial AS
ISOLATION hold it's eight-weeks-long
birthday party and celebration COM
memorating the 35Oth birthday of the
first colony founded on Roanoke Is
land in 1887 and the birth of Virginia
Dare, the first white baby born in this
hemisphere. For while the public at
large does not yet know it, the Works
Progress Administration has played a
very large part in helping to restore
the old fort as it must have looked $50
wears ago when Sir Walter Raleighs
colonists landed on the white sands of
the beach of Roanoke Island.
So it is that tomorrow, Wednesday,
July IA. is to be "WPA Day" on Roa-
noke Island and that State Admins
traitor George w. Coan. Jr, John D.
Spinks, deputy administrator, Fred j.
Cohn director of the department of
information as well as several WPA
officials from Washington, are eth
er at Roanoke Island today or on their
way there, to participate in the pro-
gram to be presented there tomorrow
telling the story of the part the WPA
has had in the preparations for the
islands birthday party. A brass band
organized with the assistance of the
WPA, will play; a special pdrogram of
choral numbers will be presented by
the Westminster Choir Group, direct
ed by Earle Stapleton, director of the
WPA music projects in the state; an
address will be made by Administra-
tor Coan, also by other WPA officials,
while a special performance of "The
Lost Colony" the superb pageant or
play built around the founding of Old
Fort Raleigh by the colonists and it's
mysterious disappearance, will close
the special program of the day.
The presentation of 1.-THE Lost Col
ony' has been greatly assisted by the
WPA, or rather by the Federal Theat-
er Project division of the WPA. The
stage, the dressing rooms and the
entire waterside theatre, seating 5000
persons, were built almost entirely
with WPA funds, while most of the
costumes were designed under WPA
direction and made up in the WPA
sewing rooms in Manteo and Durham.
Even the stage settings and scenery,
though designed by Samuel Selden,
who staged and directed the play.
with the assistance of Albert @. Bell
and Wilbur Dorset, WPA labor was
used for the most part in the actual
work of painting and building the
sets, while much assistance in the
staging of the pageant was given by
the national officials of the Federal
Theatre Project, by Regional Advisor
Frederick H. Koch of Chapel Hill,
State Director Howard Bailey and
Mrs. Alexander Mathis, director of the
Roanoke Island unit of the WPA the
atre project. Virtually all of the &C
tors and actresses employed from out
of the State came from other WPA
theatre project units, while most of
the others are from theatre projects
units here in North Carolina.
"The reason the Works Progress
Administration in North Carolina has
been able to help the Roanoke Island
birthday party as much as it has, is
first because of the unemployment ex-
listing on Roanoke Island the past two
years, justifying the expenditure of
WPA funds on the restoration of the
building in Old Fort Raleigh and
more recently in the building of the
water-side theatre, stage and dressing
rooms and in the staging of the page
ant" Administrator Coan said. 1--WE
also believe that we have not only
helped the unemployed of Roanoke Is
land and Dare county get on their
feet by helping them build histori-
cal shrine that is attracting attention
throughout the nation and the. enire
world, but that we have helped Roam
oke Island make a distinct historical
and cultural contribution to the state,
the nation and the entire world. We
are proud of the part WPA has had
and is still having in the most signi-
ficant birthday party being held any
where in the world today"
Reduced to dollars and cents, the
WPA and cooperating sponsors, chief
ly the Roanoke Colony Memorial AS
ISOLATION, has spent $24,85O in getting
ready for the birthday party csle-
bration, including the pageant, as
cording to figures compiled by Fred
Cohn which paid wages for 1885
man hours of labor by WPA workers
Previous to this expenditures by the
WPA, the old CWA and ERA spent
Sl4,l93 on various projects.