Arthurdale, West Virginia

Arthurdale is an unincorporated community located in Preston County, West Virginia, USA. Arthurdale was named for Richard Arthur, former owner of the land on which it was built, who had sold the land to the federal government under a tax default.

It was one of the first New Deal planned communities established under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, was organized under Eleanor Roosevelt's personal supervision, and hailed in its beginning as a possible model for American collectivism.

The project was plagued by cost overruns, poor choice of locale (far from other population centers, an unadvantageous geology), and after a period of attention from media and social workers was quietly sold off to residents at a cost to taxpayers.

External links

• Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site article on Arthurdale
• critical article on Arthurdale, with source citations