Tullahassee School and Gym – Tullahassee

Address:	Unmarked Streets, Tullahassee, Oklahoma	County:	Wagoner
Started:		Completed:	1939
Agencies:	WPA	NRHP:	No

Current Usage:

Abandoned; walls only standing.

Description:

Designed as a six classroom/gymnasium structure, the Tullahassee school and gymnasium is rectangular (160′ x 49′) in shape and is constructed of uncut and uncoursed native sandstone. The roof is gabled with one step, and an intersecting gable with valleys extends over the recessed entryway to the classrooms. An enclosed porch with gable and archway covers entries on either side of the gym. With cut stone sills, window openings extend to the eaves. In the classrooms, new metal sash windows have been installed, although in the gym wood inserts either reduce or completely enclose original windows. The later alteration, however, does not impeach the architectural integrity of the building.
Tullahassee is almost completely a black community. Not a particularly prosperous town, it nevertheless takes considerable pride in its school and school property. The construction of the WPA facility, which replaced a condemned building, heightened that pride and provided a structure that became the focus of community life–and so remains today. Without the classroom/gym building, modern education might never have come to Tullahassee and there would not be much of a community today. The building, therefore, is wholly unique in the town in terms of type, style, workmanship and materials. Moreover, construction of it provided needed jobs to black workers long without meaningful and gainful employment in 1938-1939 because of the national depression.

VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION: Lots 1-15, Block 21, Tullahassee original plat