Roosevelt Hall is a community auditorium and gymnasium building in Barrett, Minnesota, in Grant County. The building was built by the

Civil Works Administration The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a short-lived job creation program established by the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States to rapidly create mostly manual-labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. The jobs were ...

, a predecessor of the Works Progress Administration, in 1934. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 for being one of the few buildings built by the CWA in Minnesota. The CWA made it possible for small communities such as Barrett to build architecturally sophisticated buildings at a low cost. The building has also served as a social, cultural, and educational center for the community. The building is built of wood-frame construction and measures wide by long. It is faced with western red cedar clapboard siding, and topped with a gabled roof with wood shingles. The interior originally had a wooden gymnasium floor, a by stage, and a by balcony. The gymnasium was once used by the local public school, but after they built their own gymnasium in the early 1950s, the hall's use began to decline. The original stage was removed in 1957, and the building housed a bowling alley for 14 years. It then housed a youth center in 1973–1974, and it was used as an

insulation Insulation may refer to: Thermal * Thermal insulation, use of materials to reduce rates of heat transfer ** List of insulation materials ** Building insulation, thermal insulation added to buildings for comfort and energy efficiency *** Insulated ...

manufacturing plant from 1977 through 1979. The building is now used by the Prairie Wind Players, a community theater group. The theater group built a

proscenium A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

stage in the early 1980s. In 2004, the lobby was gutted and remodeled, with new restrooms and new ticket booths.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Cultural infrastructure completed in 1933 Buildings and structures in Grant County, Minnesota Event venues on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota New Deal in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Grant County, Minnesota 1933 establishments in Minnesota Civil Works Administration Theatres in Minnesota Gyms in the United States