Wawona School - Yosemite National Park CA
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.
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Wawona School - Yosemite National Park C
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 At some point, maybe 35 years ago it was superseded by a rather generous, utterly un-rustic-style new one.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)
Project originally submitted by John Broesamle on April 8, 2022.
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