Cohn High School - Port Allen, LA
N 30° 27.567 W 091° 13.050
15R E 671134 N 3371046
Vacant school building, with plans to transform it into an early learning center.
Waymark Code: WM56R5
Location: Louisiana, United States
Date Posted: 11/19/2008
Views: 6
I have never heard of this location. Never knew it existed. Appears that 1969 was the last year for a graduating class. Was easy to find and photograph. Most neighbors looked and waved. Could not find much history, so here is a brief history from application located
here .
Cohn High School stands on a corner in a residential neighborhood of the West Baton Rouge Parish town of Port
Allen. It consists of three unstyled buildings -- two, one-story concrete block structures erected during the 1949-1950
school year and known as Buildings A and B and a frame one-story gymnasium which was moved to the site before the
start of classes in the late summer of 1949. The masonry buildings stand side-by-side with a small court-like space
between them. The gym stands behind the masonry buildings and is centered upon the court. The high school now
shares its campus with an adjacent elementary school also named Cohn. However, it was the only facility on the site when
it opened. Each of the three historic buildings which form the high school has received some alteration. However, the
candidate is a milestone in the educational and ethnic heritage of West Baton Rouge
Parish.
The gabled roof gymnasium was the first building on the site. It began life as a pre-fabricated, portable building at
Baton Rouge's Ryan Airfield, a World War II military base, and was moved across the Mississippi River to West Baton
Rouge Parish as part of the preparations for the school's opening.1 It is a large open space with a stage at one end and
bleachers along both sides. The parish school board installed asbestos shingles on the gym's exterior at some point
during the 1950s, but no further changes have been made on the interior. Entrance is through four sets of double doors,
two on the building's east side and two on the west. One of the east entrances is served by a recently added handicap
ramp, as the gym is still used by the children attending the elementary school.
Buildings A and B are similar in appearance, with rectangular shapes and hipped roofs. Each is pierced by
several large openings containing bands of metal windows with horizontal panes. Most of the windows are boarded over
to protect them from vandalism. Both buildings have hallways with concrete floors, while the classroom floors are tiled.
The concrete block walls separating the hallways and classrooms are pierced by large transoms and doors featuring large
panes of glass in their upper halves. Porous tiles installed in a grid pattern form the ceilings. Both buildings are now used
for storage but are otherwise vacant. Neither has been maintained and both have suffered from this neglect. Ceiling tiles
have fallen and many floor tiles are broken. The glass transoms are painted over and some of the glass panels in the
doors are broken or entirely gone. In addition, covered walkways have been attached to the buildings to facilitate
movement among the structures and the modern school with which they share the site.