Big Horn Academy Historic District - Cowley, WY - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

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Big Horn Academy Historic District - Cowley, WY

in U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Posted by:  T0SHEA

12T E 699916 N 4972995

A school and gymnasium until 1983, the two buildings which constitute the historic district remain in constant use by the town of Cowley and Big Horn County School District #1.

While the Big Horn Academy was established in 1907 with the construction in Cowley of a stone schoolhouse, the present stone building wasn't constructed until 1916, at a cost of $40,000, replacing that original building. The academy was essentially dissolved in 1924 when the school was transferred to School District No. 28, thereafter to be known as the Cowley High School. The large log building beside the stone schoolhouse was a WPA project built for $10,000 in 1936 as a gymnasium for the school. Since its construction, however, the building has served the community as a community hall as well as a gymnasium.

When the school was closed in 1985 the gymnasium became solely a community hall. As the major meeting space for Cowley and surrounding towns, it has witnessed public meetings and events, political rallies, family gatherings, weddings and funerals, class reunions, dramatic productions, dances, and even prize fights. Although the log gym had been used for storage for many years, the Town of Cowley completed renovations in 2015 to make it available once again for community use. Baskets at each end of the large room, a painted court on the floor, fixed bleachers, and pendant light fixtures indicate its principal use as a basketball court, though the facility continues to host much more than athletic events.

Today the sandstone schoolhouse is used as an administration building by the Big Horn County School District #1.

Big Horn Academy Historic District

The second contributing building, the Cowley Community Hall, was built in 1936 as a Works Progress Administration's project. It is located to the east of the Big Horn Academy. The overall building plan is a cruciform shape. The log building is approximately 100 feet long by 60 feet wide and one and one-half stories tall. The foundation is a low 6" in height and made of stone. There is no basement present. The walls are made of six to eight inch lodgepole pine with saddle notched corners in a stepped log design (the projection of the logs is wider at the bottom and decreases as the logs ascend to the roof).

In 1907, the Mormons started construction in Cowley of a stone school house, a part of which was allocated to the use of a more advanced academic enterprise which they would call the Big Horn Academy... ...in 1913 the LDS authorities started planning the construction of a permanent building to house the Big Horn Academy. The old stone school house was torn down and the new school building was completed in 1916 at a cost of $40,000. The work was done entirely by horse and manpower. Stone for it was quarried from the hills to the north by expenditure of brutal hard work, much ingenuity and a limited amount of black powder. The beautifully dressed, coursed stonework, even the large capstone including its chiseled inscription, was all shaped, placed and mortared by hand.

The Academy was operated as a church school until 1924 when its physical facilities and responsibilities were transferred to School District No. 28 and the entity thereafter to be known as the Cowley High School. The building could accommodate 400 students.

A half century ago, in the depths of the Great Depression, Congress established the Works Progress Administration... ...The city dads of Cowley, Wyoming, naturally, like everybody else, asked to get on the gravy train too with a project to build a "community hall"! Uncle Sam came through with a few dollars (approximately $10,000); and for a total investment of public funds that would hardly pay the interest for six months on a typical bond issue for construction of a high school gymnasium today, these embattled farmers put up their community hall/gymnasium. Within a very few years it became officially the Cowley High School Gymnasium.

It is no exaggeration to say that every usage or employment that a meeting house in a small town might conceivably have has been valiantly served by this glorified old cabin. The ghostly presence of public meetings, church conferences, annual celebrations, family gatherings, class reunions, dances, political rallies, musical extravaganzas, dramatic presentations, even prize rights, all long past, seems almost palpable here.
From the NRHP Nomination Form