The ornate riverfront balustrades that line the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers were built by the federal Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression under Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a project to provide local employment and improve infrastructure. The ornamental fountains that stood along the riverbank were buried in the 1950s when the city began a postindustrial decline that lasted until the late 1980s. The city has since rebounded, transforming from a blue-collar industrial city to a white-collar professional city.