| Address: | Finney and Post Streets, Coalgate Oklahoma | County: | Coal |
| Started: | Completed: | 1938 | |
| Agencies: | WPA | NRHP: | No |
Current Usage:
Abandoned
Description:
A three room building, the old Carver school of Coalgate is a single story, rectangular (56′ x 48′) structure constructed of lightly rusticated and coursed native sandstone. The gabled roof is intersected by a frontal gable, the latter asymetrically placed over an arched entryway leading to recessed doors. Most classroom window openings, which reach to the eaves and have cut stone sills, have been enclosed with wood inserts and new openings cut for metal sash windows. The window alteration, however, does not impeach the architectural integrity of the building.
The Carver school was the black school prior to integration in Coalgate. The WPA laborers who worked on it were also black. The building is significant, therefore, because construction of it provided work opportunities for unskilled and unemployed black laborers made destitute by the depression and because it created a new environment conducive to learning for black students previously deprived educationally. As an urban WPA building, it is remarkable for its modest scale. To the community it is unique architecturally because of its type (black school), style, materials and workmanship.
VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION: Lot 3, Block 198, Coalgate original
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You have the name wrong. Extensive newspaper articles and other sources during the time of closure identify the school as “Booker T. Washington” school, not George Washington Carver school.
Is there any information about the principal or teachers of the school?