- City:
- Whittier, CA
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Schools
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
- Quality of Information:
- Minimal
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
Whittier High School—perhaps best known as Hill Valley High School in the film Back to the Future—was rebuilt with New Deal funds after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. The funding almost surely came from the Public Works Administration (PWA), which had made school reconstruction in Southern California a priority. This needs to be confirmed.
The Wikipedia entry on the school says that, “The Science Building was rebuilt in 1934; a Boys’ Gym in 1935; dressing rooms and Cafeteria in 1936. The Auditorium stood idle for almost 20 years and then was renovated into the present Library. In 1938, the District approved bonds for a new Girls’ Gym and an Auditorium. Both were completed in 1940.”
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Charles H Bennett
The auditorium and other buildings at Whittier High were designed by local architect William Harrison. -Charles Bennett, Whittier High Alumni Historian