Completed on Christmas Day, 1932, the Palace of Depression was an eighteen-spired, pastel-colored castle built in a swamp out of rusted auto parts and mud. Far from a monument to melancholia, the Palace was built to show that the Great Depression was beatable. "The only real depression is a depression of individual ingenuity," explained its creator, George Daynor. Daynor said he was a former Alaska gold miner. He accumulated a fortune, then lost it all in the Wall Street crash of 1929. With only four dollars in his pocket, he was guided to New Jersey by an angel.Realizing that George had the proper can-do attitude and was good with his hands, the angel provided him with the basic design for his Palace. The four acres cost him four dollars. He ate frogs, fish, rabbits and squirrels during the three years it took to build the Palace.
Source for this inspiring image and story is here.