- City:
- Shawnee, OK
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Schools
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
- Completed:
- 1937
- Designer:
- Davis & Son
- Contractor:
- Cowen Construction Company
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
A plaque on the corner of the vacant Washington school in Shawnee, Oklahoma says that the building was a project of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, which was the New Deal program that became known as the Public Works Administration (PWA). The Oklahoma Historic Preservation Survey, however, lists the school as a WPA property.
The construction project was completed in 1937. During the 1980s, the school housed all Shawnee fifth graders. In the late 1990s, the building was shut down and boarded up.
The description for Washington School on Waymarking.com reads as follows:
“This is a two-story brick building with a one-story wing on the west end and a two-story wing on the east, with its basement fully above ground on the east end. The school has the feel of Art Deco with its horizontal lines, and two large bay window extensions at the rear. It stands on the grounds of Farrell Park.
The main entrance facing north has three doors under a concrete canopy. There is a two-door entrance into the auditorium. Decoration is established by the use of lines of darker colored brick and the placement of circular masonry plaques on the front showing George Washington, and an eternal flame.”
Source notes
Waymarking.com: Washington School, Shawnee, OK AbandonedOK: Washington School of Shawnee Oklahoma Historic Preservation Survey Landmarks Inventory NominationSite originally submitted by Hamquilter on August 8, 2017.
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Thank you for the picture of Washington Elementary school. I was born in 1937 on Farrell Street and
later lived at 420 S. Beard Street. I LOVED this school and the teachers Ms. Ames, Ms. Yancy, Ms Malone, Ms Brinson and Ms Harriston (the principle). At age 10 we moved to a house near Oklahoma Baptist University. I transferred to Wilson elementary and found the children there were from higher income families and were distant and sometimes hurtful. I began to cut school. I cried and I hated the place. My mother went to the school board president to get permission for me to travel across town taking two buses to get back to Washington Elementary. I did that gladly and got back to the teachers I loved. I did well and later completed a Masters Degree in Community Health Nursing and taught pharmacology in a community college for many years. I have a special place in my heart for the neighborhood and the wonderful people who lived in the South Beard area in Shawnee.
area during and after World War II