Eureka High School Industrial Arts Building - Eureka CA

City:: Eureka, CA
Site Type:: Education and Health, Schools
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
Started:: 1938
Completed:: 1940
Quality of Information:: Good
Marked:: Unknown
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Industrial Arts (Education) building at Eureka High School was funded in part by the Public Works Administration (PWA). PWA provided 45% of the money for a set of construction projects by the Eureka Public School District, including this building. A school bond measure provided the balance of the funds.

The funding was apparently secured in late 1938, the structure erected in 1939 and the official opening took place with little fanfare in early 1940.

The style of the two-story building is Streamline Moderne, with a curved wall made of glass bricks to the left of the entrance and streamline horizontal bars between the windows.

The Industrial Arts Building is still in use, marked in large letters as “Lecture Hall”. In 2023 the view of it had become badly marred by ugly metal rain-roofs between buildings and fencing for construction of another new buildings toward the street.

Eureka High School’s main building is a beautiful Art Deco structure from the late 1920s.

(The overall district building project also included four elementary schools, the status of which we do not know).

Source notes

Craig Parker, "A study of the New Deal's impact on a small community : Eureka, California, 1937 - 1939." MA Thesis, Humboldt State University, Arcata CA. 2005.
https://humboldt-dspace.calstate.edu/xmlui/handle/2148/16

Site originally submitted by Craig Parker on March 24, 2011.
Additional contributions by Richard Walker.