- City:
- Anchorage, AK
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Schools
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
- Started:
- 1938
- Completed:
- 1939
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Site Survival:
- No Longer Extant
Description
“During the depression years (1938-39) the Central Grade School in Anchorage was built in Art Deco design, as a PWA (Public Works Administration) project of the Roosevelt Administration.” (ed.gov)
The building was located on Fifth Avenue between F St. and G St. It is no longer extant.
PWA Docket No. AK W1023.
Source notes
National Archives: Record Group 135: Public Works Administration; Projects Control Division; Entry 52: Indices to Non-Federal Projects; Report No. 5: Status of All Completed Non-Federal Allotted Projects, page 219.
The Fabric of Alaska's Past: (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED194429.pdf), accessed February 12, 2018.
Alaska History: (https://www.alaskahistory.org/biographies/mears-jane-wainwright/), accessed February 12, 2018.
Alaska's digital archives: (https://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cdmg2/id/181/rec/1), accessed February 12, 2018.
Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish and George Donart on November 17, 2016.
Additional contributions by Darrell Lewis, February 12, 2018.
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George Donart
Evan Kalish
Location information for Central Grade School in Anchorage, AK:
From: https://www.alaskahistory.org/biographies/mears-jane-wainwright/
“By the summer of 1917, the Anchorage population had grown to over five thousand and school enrollment stood at over two hundred. By the fall of 1917, the AEC (Alaska Engineering Commission) built a new, larger second school (Anchorage Public School) as well. Upon completion, the AEC donated the $45,000 school building to the school district.(17) The two-story frame structure was located on Fifth Avenue between F and G Streets and was used for elementary and secondary classes until it was torn down in 1938 and replaced by Central Grade School, which later became the Old City Hall annex.(18)”
17. “U.S. Government Presents School Building to Anchorage,” Alaska Railroad Record, December 4, 1917. Reprinted in Bernadine LeMay Prince, The Alaska Railroad in Pictures, 1914-1964 (Anchorage: Ken Wray’s Print Shop, 1964), 183.
18. Michael Carberry and Donna Lane, Patterns of the Past: An Inventory of Anchorage’s Historic Resources, 85; Claus-M. Naske and L.J. Rowinski, Anchorage: A Pictorial History (Norfolk, VA: Donning Company, Publishers, 1981), 71; and Helve Enatti, “Anchorage Public Schools, 1915-1951,” 19-20.
George — thank you for the additional information! We’ve incorporated some details into our primary post, and revised the map marker accordingly.