- City:
- Dallas, TX
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Schools
- New Deal Agencies:
- Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Started:
- 1937
- Designer:
- Hoke Smith
- Quality of Information:
- Minimal
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
In 1937, a school was built in Rylie, Texas (now Dallas) to replace the former school that burned down the year before.
An article published in 1937 in the Dallas Daily Times Herald, recounts the process by which federal funds were granted for the construction of the school:
“Officials Puzzled When Second Okay for School WPA Grant Comes Through
The board of trustees of Rylie common school district is well fixed for federal aid on construction of a new school house, unofficial reports from Washington indicated Wednesday.
Hoke Smith, architect for county school projects aided by the Works Progress Administration, was unable to understand an announcement that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had Tuesday given his approval to Public Works Administration allocation of $14,850 for erection of a new Rylie district school, costing about $33,000.
‘That’s funny,” Mr. Smith said. “A WPA application for the same project has been approved and is undergoing final examination at the state WPA headquarters in San Antonio. We expect to be able to start construction in about three weeks with WPA labor.’
The PWA application the president was reported to have okayed was submitted to Washington about two years ago, when the need for a new school at Rylie was less urgent than now, Smith explained.
Last winter, while school was in session one afternoon, the Rylie school building caught fire and was destroyed within a few minutes, but not a pupil was injured. Since then, sessions have been conducted in two churches of the community.
‘I’ll have to find out the straight of the thing before I’ll know if our plans will be changed, Smith said.'”
Source notes
https://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jwheat/rylie.html (August 18, 1937, Dallas Daily Times Herald, Sec. II, p. 1, col. 6-7)
Site originally submitted by Susan Smith on October 27, 2017.
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I doubt this is correct. A 1952 overhead shows this address to be a vacant lot, and the first school at this location doesn’t appear until 1956. The 1959 and 1962 topo maps show this location to be the site of an unnamed high school, and today it looks like a charter school.
I suspect the WPA school was located on Cartego Street at US 175. The 1962 and 1956 overheads show a large building at that location, as does the 1959 and 1962 topo maps, where it’s labeled “Rylie School” but it’s gone from all maps by 1968. The lot has remained vacant since that time. 32°41’32.93″N 96°38’13.47″W.
The Rylie School is now A+ Charter with The Rylie School sign still out front.