Skyline Farms was an effort to build a “new world” in rural America where tenant farmers, hit hard by the Great Depression, would become self-sufficient landowners and live in an idyllic village. Started by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in 1934 and later operated by the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration, it was carved out of mountain wilderness as one of about 40 farm communities established during President Franklin Roosevelt's administration. The federal government acquired about 18,000 acres for the project, first called “Cumberland Mountain Farms,” to help tenant families gain a home and eventually their own 40-acre farm, while also providing work for unemployed local people through road and building construction and through a small factory the government built and leased to a private company. Although intended to give families a new start, the project was charged with waste and mismanagement, only a few selected families acquired their units, most could not make the one-fourth down payment, and under pressure from Congress the Farm Security Administration ended its farm community programs and sold Skyline units to private buyers, forcing families who could not make their down payment to leave their homes. Even so, Skyline Farms carried many families through the worst of the Great Depression by providing healthcare, food, clothing, and housing, and many participants learned skills such as painting, stonemasonry, and carpentry, while children received educations that lasted a lifetime.