- City:
- Arroyo Grande, CA
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Gymnasiums
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
- Started:
- 1936
- Completed:
- 1937
- Designer:
- Walker and Eisen
- Contractor:
- F.C. Stolte Company
- Quality of Information:
- Very Good
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
Formerly the gym for Arroyo Grande Union High School. Completed for $24,400 in 1937 with a Public Works Administration grant of $14,255. The gym is still in use by the middle school that stands on the old high school site today. Students gathered here on December 8, 1941, to listen a radio set up on the stage, as FDR asked for a declaration of war on Japan. The following April, buses gathered just outside to take area Japanese-Americans into internment at the Tulare Assembly Center. Twenty-five of the 58 members of the ill-fated Class of 1942 were Nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans.
Max Belko, a USC All-American football player, taught P.E. and coached basketball in this gym. As a Marine lieutenant, Belko was killed in the invasion of Guam in 1944. Perhaps the last of Belko’s students, Haruo Hayashi, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, died in 2022.
Source notes
"World War II Arroyo Grande," Jim Gregory, ISBN-10: ‎ 146711958X.
Arroyo Grande Valley "Herald-Recorder" (a weekly), various editions, 1936-37.
Site originally submitted by James (Jim) Gregory, president of the South County Historical Society on May 14, 2024.
Site Details
| Federal Cost | Total Cost |
|---|---|
| $14.00 | $24.00 |
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