Tipton Ridge School - Pittsburg County, OK
N 35° 07.239 W 095° 30.460
15S E 271482 N 3889300
Now a hunting lodge, the old Tipton Ridge School is northeast of Blocker in rural Pittsburg County, OK, on the east side of McNally Rd, about 1/3 mile north of its intersection with Rea Rd.
Waymark Code: WM198AE
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 12/23/2023
Views: 1
This old school was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1988, and its Nomination Form (see Web Address) provides a building description:
The classic one-room building, the Tipton Ridge school is a single story, rectangular (36' x 23') structure constructed of cut and roughly coursed native sandstone. The masonry is crude; the mortar is incised. The roof, covered with metal sheets, is gabled; the west front door is recessed behind an archway covered by a small porch. Window openings with cut stone sills have been enclosed with wood inserts; a small metal building has been added to the northeast corner. Neither alteration impeaches the integrity of the structure.
The "Significance" section is brief, and barely touches upon the students who attended:
1936; builder/architect: Okla. State Dept. of Education pattern book
Construction of the school building provided work opportunities and some economic security for unemployed coal miners in a remote area where mines had been closed for some five years and residents had faced the prospect of starvation. A new physical atmosphere
supportive of learning also resulted for students previously confined to a poorly lighted wood structure. Architecturally the building is unique in the community in terms of its type, style, scale, materials and workmanship. Now used as a hunting lodge, the structure is a good example of adaptive reuse.
With the suggestion of 1936 as a construction date, and the significance of helping the unemployed to feed themselves and their families, this has a whiff of the WPA, and there are two allusions to that organization later in the document A handwritten note states, "The building is architecturally significant as a good example of a WPA one room school type", which goes hand-in-hand with the aforementioned pattern book from the Department of Education, and also included is a reference to "WPA Public Buildings, Recreational Facilities, and Cemetery Improvements in Southeastern Oklahoma, 1935-1943" -- "TR" being "Thematic Resources". This school is listed among that document's properties, but there is no obvious signage on the building to identify it as the work of the WPA (which is quite common anyway). The grounds are fairly well-maintained, and there are signs advising that security cameras are in use. Behave.