PlacesPages: Rainier #11: Rainier Elementary School

Friday, May 2, 2014

Rainier #11: Rainier Elementary School

305 West Third Street

Old Rainier Elementary School on September 5, 2005.

Rainier’s first official school building was built in 1885 and was located at what is now the corner of East Fourth and D Street. Up until then school had been held in various locations by private contribution. The original school was converted into a home in 1895 when the school moved to a new building on this site.

View of Rainier, showing schoolhouse as built in 1895.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

The first school was built on this site in 1895, and was expanded in 1907. At that time the school was a large wood-frame building.

View of Rainier in January 1910, showing expanded school.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

Rainier schoolhouse.
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

The town rapidly outgrew the school, and the city began searching for a site for a new high school. No suitable site could be found, and the high school ended up being built on the back of the existing school building in 1915. The new high school was a large modern 4-story building, with the lower two floors of concrete and the upper two floors stucco, but it wasn't enough. Rainier would end up taking in high-school age students from the small schools outside of town, and in March 1926, the new Rainier Union High School opened. The 1915-built high school became a part of the adjacent elementary school.

1915 Rainier High School
(Michael Clark collection, used with permission)

On April 13, 1949 at 11:57 a.m., a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck near Olympia, Washington. The earthquake caused $1.5 million in damage, including significant damage to Rainier Elementary School. The stucco walls of the former high school built in 1915 were severely cracked, and that portion of the building was quickly condemned. Interestingly, the older wooden section was declared no less safe than before the earthquake, but it was still long overdue for replacement. On June 17, 1948, contracts were let for the demolition of the stucco part of the building to L. E. Darharsh of Longview, Washington, for $7,600, and work was to begin on the 27th. After demolition, a new flat roof was built over the concrete walls of the lower two floors of the 1915 building, which included the gymnasium and boiler room.

Old Rainier Elementary School on September 5, 2005.

Architects Wolfe and Phillips of Portland designed the new elementary school. The building was designed to feature as many as 20 classrooms, though only 10 were initially built. (Most of the original plan would eventually be built; for example, two new classrooms were built in 1955.) The new building was built in sections to allow the old wooden building to remain as long as possible before being demolished to make room for the last section of the new building. On August 16, 1949, the contracts for construction of the new building were awarded to the Bickford Construction Company of Portland for $197,800. The new elementary school was opened to the public on August 25, 1950, and opened to students for the new school year on August 28. Because the school was built in sections and was designed for expansion, it has a somewhat rambling style, and ended up bearing almost no resemblance to the impressive and unusual structure it replaced. Almost.

Old Rainier Elementary School on February 24, 2011.

On the east side of the building, the remains of the 1915 High School are in plain sight. The concrete walls with the large blanked windows were originally the bottom two floors of the 1915 High School. Originally two more tall floors towered over above those two lower floors which are cut into the hill as a foundation. Today, there is no second floor, except in the southeast corner. Behind the unblanked windows on the second floor is one classroom (beneath it is the boys' locker room) that seems to be left over from the original school. A staircase in the gym leads up to a door, that looks like a closet door. Behind that door is the room. Another door on the room's west wall has a tilting glass transom and leads to what seems to be a closet. But, that was the room's main door, and I think the "closet" used to be part of the corridor. At one point the room was used as a band room, but in 2004 the chalkboard still had arithmetic problems on it from when it was last used.

Old Rainier Elementary School on February 25, 2011.

Around 1990, a nature trail was built behind the school by the Friends of Fox Creek. Even though the school is no longer used as a school, the Fox Creek Trail remains and is maintained for use by the general public.

Old Rainier Elementary School on February 25, 2011.

In 2004, the Rainier School District sold the building to the Riverside Community Church. The church rents out most of the classrooms to others, including the Rainier School District's charter school North Columbia Academy. As for that one classroom from 1915, it became the home of the Longview, Kelso & Rainier Model Railroad Club until 2014.

Model train swap meet in the old Rainier Elementary School gymnasium on December 9, 2006.