Wawona Elementary School – Yosemite National Park CA

City:
Yosemite National Park, CA

Site Type:
Education and Health, Schools

New Deal Agencies:
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Conservation and Public Lands, Work Relief Programs, National Park Service (NPS)

Started:
1937

Completed:
1937

Quality of Information:
Good

Marked:
No

Site Survival:
Extant

Description

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built a school house at Wawona in 1937. The enrollee work teams came from the nearby Wawona CCC Camp YNP #7.

The building is a shingled, rustic wood structure set on a stone foundation, with large windows for good interior lighting. Its appearance is unchanged over the years.

A new, large school has replaced the New Deal building sometime around 1970, built in a modern style at odds with the old idea of park rusticity.  The old CCC school was used for many years as a community center, until that, too, was replaced by a new, larger, boxy building.

As of 2022, the old CCC school is not being used.  It lies just to the west and behind the new school.

Source notes

John Broesamle adds this personal history: "My wife, daughter and I wintered over in Wawona in 1967-68 while I was writing my dissertation. A distant relative of mine was the (sole) teacher at the school, which was still in use. At some point, maybe 35 years ago it was superseded by a rather generous, utterly un-rustic-style new one. The old school was then used as a community center-gathering place until a new one of those materialized--a hideous big brown box." (personal communication, April 2022)

Site originally submitted by John Broesamle on April 8, 2022.

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