Address: Vicinity of Warner, OklahomaCounty Muskogee
Started: Completed 1939
Agencies:WPANRHP:No

Current Usage

Description:

This four-room, single-story, rectangular (49′ x 55′) school is constructed of uncut native stone of buff and auburn colors in a masonry of random rubble. Placement of the rocks, however, suggest an ad hoc design. The roof is gabled with an intersecting center gable that extends only to the front facade. Beneath the gable in an archway that accesses the front door. Window openings, with both concrete sills and lintels, extend to the eaves. These as well as the front entry have been filled with wood inserts and more energy efficient windows and doors installed. There is a lunette window with shutters near the gable. Alterations have not impeached the integrity of the structure.
This school is significant because it constituted an economically and educationally important community resource at the time of its construction and since. Its construction provided wages from some 24,000 man-hours of labor for local families which were then infused back into the depressed local economy. Jobs generated by the construction of the school enabled unemployed workers to provide for their previously destitute families and restored a sense of worth to their personhood. The school signaled the genesis of modern education in the community, a tradition sustained for many years. Architecturally, the school is unique within the area for its vernacular design and remarkable workmanship suggested by the design built into its rock walls.[1]

VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION: Go east of Warner on highway 64 for 3.25 miles to the school site on a one acre tract in the southwest corner of the SE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Sec. 24, T 12 N, R 19 E.

Sources:

  1. Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory Nomination

Supported Documents:

  1. WPA Properties Muskogee County – Popes Chapel School

Photos: