- City:
- Sumner, OK
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Gymnasiums
- New Deal Agencies:
- Works Progress Administration (WPA), Work Relief Programs
- Started:
- 1940
- Completed:
- 1941
Description
The Oklahoma National Register of Historic Places lists this sandstone gymnasium as having been added to the Sumner School by the Federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1940-1941. The gymnasium “features a hipped barrel roof.” The Waymarking site for the gymnasium estimates that the small farming community of Sumner likely had little more than 50 residents when the gymnasium was constructed in 1940 and today the population has dwindled slightly.
The Oklahoma Historical Society points out that the gymnasium’s construction “…created jobs and some economic relief for unemployed agricultural workers. As a WPA building, the gymnasium is architecturally notable in terms of its large scale for a rural school, style, decorative workmanship, and construction materials.”
The building is now abandoned. It “…stands in a field with no access… and [is] covered with vines.” (Hamquilter)
Source notes
<a href="https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMWHN9_Gymnasium_Auditorium_Sumner_OK">Gymnasium/Auditorium - Sumner, OK</a>
<a href="https://oli_shpo.okstate.edu/resultquery.aspx?id=67834&pbc=P">Oklahoma Historical Society Landmarks Inventory</a>
<a href="https://nr_shpo.okstate.edu/shpopic.asp?id=96000492">National Register Properties in Oklahoma: Sumner School</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rElzIi0jQhU">YouTube video: Abandoned school, ghost town of Sumner, Oklahoma</a>
Site originally submitted by Hamquilter on September 20, 2017.
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