Paonia High School (former) – Paonia CO

Description

The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided a grant that covered about half the cost of building a new high school in Paonia CO in 1938-39.  The school closed when a new high school was constructed in the neighboring town of Hotchkiss to serve Paonia and surrounding small towns in Delta County.

The old high school building is two-stories, with a set-back second story, clad in sand/buff brick.  The style is stripped-down Moderne, with the only decoration a horizontal banding at the upper window line and abstract bas-relief over what was presumably the original entrance.  The crummy roof-line trim is from a renovation/reroofing.

An addition to the school was built in 1959, at the left of the present entrance.  There is a plaque about the addition inside the lobby and possibly a PWA plaque beyond that, but we could not gain entrance to see.

There is a stone wall around the property that might have been done as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) landscaping project at the old high school, but we have no confirmation of that.

The former Paonia High School became the Paonia Campus of the Delta-Montrose Technical College at some point; then the latter became part of the Technical College of the Rockies; and now the campus appears to be shuttered.