Mountain View School (demolished) – Martinez CA

Description

The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the construction of the Mountain View elementary school near Martinez.  At the time, the school was located just outside the city of Martinez in an unincorporated area southeast of the city limits at the corner of Palm Avenue and Almond Street, a couple blocks south of Pacheco Boulevard. 

The PWA funds appear to have passed through the city’s hands.  Receipt of a $21,406 grant from the PWA for the school was announced at a city council meeting on August 3, 1938 (Council Minutes). Perhaps, this anticipated the subsequent incorporation of the Mountain View neighborhood.

The New Deal school was designed by William Weeks in a plain Moderne style, with Mediterranean tiles decorating the entrance and the upper walls.  The tiles came from a factory in Los Angeles.

The school closed some time in the late 20th century.  After that it was rented for several years to a Native American group for community activities, but that lease was terminated and the building abandoned.  It was already derelict when the photographs here were taken, c 1996, and it later burned and was finally demolished to make way for a housing development in the 2000s.