Former Schoolhouse Building in WA - Historical Society Museum

Port Stanley School, Lopez Island Washington

Date added: September 23, 2024

Categories:
Washington
School

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The Port Stanley School, while modestly designed and suffering from neglect, remains the best-preserved example of early education on Lopez Island.

Port Stanley, located at the northeast corner of Lopez Island, was one of three, very small rural community centers on the island. Each community consisted of a community hall, a post office, a general store, and a grammar school. Residents living on one part of the island rarely traveled to the other community areas of the island. The Port Stanley community was given its name, after the British explorer, Sir Henry Stanley, whose book, In Darkest Africa, was a sensation in the early 1890s. The area was developed by Frank P. Baum, attorney, newspaper owner/publisher, prohibitionist, and real estate promoter. With a group of like-minded men, he bought up property around a small lagoon on Lopez Island's Swift Bay. William W. Mallory, a Methodist preacher better known in some circles as the "Kansas Cyclone", was president of the company, and Baum was the secretary. The men called themselves the Port Stanley Townsite Development Company.

Port Stanley came into being in June 1892. Baum was appointed postmaster and built a combined post office, store, and residence, which also housed his newspaper office, the "Graphic." Lots were sold sight unseen, many under water at high tide. The national economic panic in 1893 put the Port Stanley company abruptly out of business.

In 1889 a two-story community hall was built at Port Stanley with church services conducted on the first floor and meetings and dances held upstairs. In 1902 approximately fifty families of the community organized the Port Stanley Rochdale Company, a cooperative store patterned after the British Rochdale Company. A community dock became a regular stop for steamer traffic between Anacortes, the San Juan Islands, and Bellingham.

Around the outbreak of World War II, California investors established the Puget Sound Potash and Kelp Fertilizer Company at Port Stanley. They harvested kelp with the vessel "Harvester King" and extracted potash for wartime-needed explosives in a large, three-story building complex they built at the water's edge. At the end of the war, the market for potash collapsed, the company dissolved and the building fell into ruin. The community never recovered from this loss and is now no more than a row of summer cottages along the bay.

The Port Stanley School served as one of four regional schoolhouses on Lopez Island, Washington from 1917 to 1938. Each schoolhouse was built by an independent, rural island school district formed by the heads of the families of the neighboring community. They elected directors among themselves, secured a place for holding a school and raised money by taxation or voluntary contribution for support of the district and employment of a teacher. The schools were an important focus of community life, an element of cohesion and identity on an island isolated from the mainland. They also reflected the islander's belief in the value of universal education.

The Port Stanley School was the third schoolhouse in the Port Stanley School District. The first was a drafty log cabin probably built in the 1880s. The second, located approximately one mile from the present building, sheltered schoolchildren at the turn of the century. Land for the third building, the Port Stanley School, was donated by a community member, Mr. Erb. The building was designed in a simple Arts and Crafts style by seventeen-year-old Lee Norderer in 1917. Norderer had studied mechanical drawing for a year at Lincoln High School in Seattle.

The Lopez School, located near the community of Lopez, is a wood frame building built in 1894. The Victorian-style school with a central tower has been moved, and three gabled wings have been added. The two-room Center School, now used as a grange hall, was built in the early 1900s, but no longer retains its bell tower. A conversion of the 1909 Mud Bay School to a private residence resulted in the installation of a plywood slider door, removal of original fir flooring, and reroofing with tin. Though abandoned and neglected, the Port Stanley School remains one of the few visual reminders of the island's early development. Its pastoral setting in a large, unaltered acreage.

Today San Juan County is one of the fastest growing areas of the state. Over half of its population has resided here for less than five years. The one surviving village on Lopez Island has been rapidly changing to accommodate the growing demands of this new population. The Port Stanley Schoolhouse area, however, has remained unchanged and still reflects the rural, isolated lifestyle of earlier years in the San Juan Islands.

Building Description

The Port of Stanley School is a one-story, three-room, rectangular frame building with a gabled roof running east and west. The Arts and Crafts style is evident in the use of exposed rafter tails, knee brace brackets, and grouped windows. Overall dimensions are forty-six feet by twenty-eight feet. A small gabled, entry porch, long removed, sheltered the door at the northeast corner. The outline of the missing porch is apparent on the east facade and is documented with historic photographs. A concrete foundation wall supports eight-inch-by-ten-inch floor joists. The exterior walls are sheathed with shiplap siding. The roof is finished with wood shingles and has a wood gutter system and a simple brick flue. Two, one-inch-by-six-inch knee brace brackets are exposed under the north and south twelve-inch overhangs, with ends covered by one-inch-by-six-inch fascia. There are four, inch-by-six-inch knee brace brackets under the east and west overhangs at the ridge and quarter points.

From the northeast doorway, one enters a narrow cloakroom. This is separated from the large, single classroom by a full-height partition into which grilled openings are cut for air circulation. A third room in the rear (west) originally served as the teacher's office and library and has a separate outside entry on the west wall. The building was heated by a wood stove located at the west end of the classroom. The ceilings are covered by lath and plaster, as are the walls. There is a beaded, one-inch-by-four-inch wood wainscot in all rooms.

The south facade is dominated by two groupings of windows; to the rear remains a four-part transom of six-light windows, the lower folding casements have since been removed. Illuminating the classroom is a long opening formerly containing identical windows. Today, the twelve-light folding casements are missing, however the six-light transoms remain. Window openings are currently boarded over with plywood for security. The windows have plain surrounds and sills with molded drip caps. The north facade features three, one-over-one, double-hung sash, now boarded over. The west (rear) facade also contains a single window opening of grouped windows and transoms. This, as well as a northwest door are boarded up.

The interior door and window casings are of flat grain fir. Floors are one-inch-by-four-inch, tongue-and-groove, with one-inch-by-twelve-inch baseboards. Fir, paneled doors that originally separated the rooms are missing. Large slate boards were originally found on the north and east walls of the classroom. Originally sheathed with shingles, the roof currently features a shake roof. A brick chimney rising toward the rear of the building marks the original location of the stove.

The school stands at a quiet rural corner along the Port Stanley road. A mix of deciduous trees and conifers forms a boundary behind the building, while a broad landscape of open fields provides a pastoral setting to the southeast. The building and the landscape in which it is located have remained virtually unchanged during its seventy-seven years. Over two hundred acres of cattle pasture across the road, south, and east of the schoolhouse, are now preserved in farmland conservation easements with the San Juan Preservation Trust. The property to the north and west of the building is in the process of being placed in conservation easements.

Currently, the Port Stanley School is in poor condition, as it has been unused since Lopez Island voters chose to consolidate their four regional school districts in the late 1930s. With only minor alterations evident, the removal of the small entry porch and the loss of portions of some windows, the structure retains its original character both on the exterior and interior. In May 1993, the foundation was found to be sound, and since it is a relatively new building (1917) all materials used in construction are still readily available. The schoolhouse and property have been offered to the Lopez Island Historical Society as a gift with the provision that the building be restored to its original appearance. Today's island community is very supportive and eager to help make this project happen. Since this offer has been made public, former students have donated many historic school photographs and offered useful information about the school's history.