Valley Springs School – Valley Springs AR

City:
Valley Springs, AR

Site Type:
Education and Health, Schools

New Deal Agencies:
Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)

Description

“In the 1870’s, Valley Springs had a reputation as an educational center of northwest Arkansas, known as “The Athens of the Hills” because of the fine Valley Springs and Rally Hill private academies nearby.  The New Deal brought a return to the educational luster of the now-public Valley Springs School District; 1940 saw the construction of not only a new high school building for the community, but also a new Smith-Hughes agricultural building.  The Harrison Daily Times reported that these additions to the campus “will make Valley Springs again the possessor of one of the finest school plants in north Arkansas.”  Even before the completion of the new building, students were bused in from as far away as Everton to attend the Valley Springs High School.[1]

The new rock veneer Valley Springs High School was built with W.P.A. labor for $45,000 in 1940.  The building designs, based on “the latest plans of school construction approved by the State Department of Education,” provided for seven class rooms and an auditorium in the 173′ x 65′ structure.  Construction funds ran short by the end of the year (initially, the construction cost was projected to be just $29,000), and the community was forced to vote an additional one mill levy to finance the completion of the high school building.[2]

The Valley Springs School, constructed during the period covered by the historic context The Evolution of the Public School System in the Arkansas Ozarks, 1920-1940, is an impressive example of a stone school building constructed for a rural school district.  Its documented construction by the W.P.A. and its use during this period as a local school building clearly identify it with this historic context and with this property type.  It is significant locally under Criterion A through its direct associations with both the history of the evolution of the public school system in the Ozark Mountain region of the state during this period and the W.P.A.”

Source notes

https://www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-properties/_search_nomination_popup.aspx?id=830

Location Info


1 School St.
Valley Spring, AR 72601

Coordinates: 36.1575214, -92.99331

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