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The federally funded Westmoreland Homesteads, Mt. Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, PA, 1936.
Credit: Special Collections and Archives, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
In April, 1934, federal officials acquired close to 1,500 acres of farmland in Mt. Pleasant Township, Westmoreland County, to built "subsistence homesteads" for the desperate families of unemployed bituminous coal miners in southwestern Pennsylvania. The fourth of nearly 100 cooperative communities funded by Congress in the Great Depression, Westmoreland Homes had more than 1,200 residents by late 1930s.