Late in 1933, in the thick of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civil Works Administration, a job-creation program that was part of the New Deal he’d created earlier in his presidency. Although most CWA jobs were manual labor, the program also employed artists and writers left jobless in the dismal economy of the early ‘30s. These new jobs were temporary, and by mid-1934 the program had disbanded. Though it was short-lived, Coloradans of today owe a debt of gratitude to the CWA, because among the projects it created is an incredible set of interviews that shed light on the early days of our state.