Santa Cruz High School Gym (former) – Española NM

Description

In 1935, the Santa Fe County Board of Education prepared a WPA project proposal for a gym at Santa Cruz High School, a school located in a rural community just east of Española.

Opened in 1925, with 89 students, it was the only high school in the greater Española Valley until 1930.

The gym, to be constructed of traditional adobe, would be thoroughly “modern” and include a “standard size ball court” and meet “all the requirements of the State Board of Education” (WPA OP 65-85-498: 7238).

The Board estimated that it would cost $8,664.40 to construct, with the WPA contributing $5,919.75.

The WPA played an important role in developing school infrastructure in New Mexico during the Great Depression. Prior to the New Deal, New Mexico’s more than 900 school districts relied primarily on property taxes to fund new school construction. Given the state’s low tax base, especially in poor, rural areas, the monies provided by the PWA and WPA proved a boon to school construction.

According to one figure, by 1937 the WPA had financed 257 new school buildings, 54 playgrounds, 15 gymnasiums, and remodeled 56 schools (Nanninga, 1942: 111).

By the conclusion of the New Deal, 361 schools had been constructed with WPA funds, representing the seventh highest expenditure on schools in the United States during the Depression (Kammer, 1994: 53).

The gym served its purpose as a public facility for nearly 40 years, until the high school closed in 1976. The structure still stands and is used by the Holy Cross Catholic School.