- City:
- Castro Valley, CA
- Site Type:
- Schools, Education and Health
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
- Quality of Information:
- Minimal
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The Public Works Administration (PWA) funded the rural Stonybrook School (of the then Stonybrook School District) in southeast Alameda County. It replaced a wooden, one-room schoolhouse (see photo).
Unfortunately, the PWA record does not give an exact location or date for the school. We surmise that it was built somewhere in Stonybrook Canyon, north of Niles Canyon, in southeastern Alameda County – still a very rural area in the 1930s. A 1924 map of school districts in the county shows a Stonybrook District in that area (see below) and there is no other place anywhere in Alameda County with the name “Stonybrook”.
The owner of Stonybrook Canyon Farm on Palomares Road, which runs south from the present city of Castro Valley to the Niles Canyon, claims that the old school building still exists somewhere on his land. This seems possible since the Stonybook Creek runs through that valley.
MyCastroValley.com states: “The school was so small, they moved it closer to the students attending as necessary. The school closed in 1947 and is now a private home.”
Source notes
PWA record card in the National Archives and Records Administration, College Park MD
https://www.mycastrovalley.com/history/page12.html (accessed Jul. 23, 2022)
Site originally submitted by Gray Brechin on November 13, 2010.
Additional contributions by Richard A Walker and Yvonne Rose.
At this Location:
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Site located at 33320 Palomares rd, Castro valley.