From the City of Westminster: (
visit link)
The Harris Park School House, also known as the DeSpain School, was built between 1892 and 1899 and named after the town in which most of the students lived. The original building contained three classrooms and was built in the French-Chateau style architecture. A town of truck gardens and farms, the school was one of the few buildings built of brick. The elaborate style and permanence of the construction materials showed the vision and the belief the town fathers had in their unincorporated community. The land for the school had been sold to the school district by the son of the first settler in the area. Pleasant DeSpain Sr. homesteaded in the area in 1870 and it was hi son, Benjamin DeSpain, who bought the land from the government and then sold it to the district for a sale price of $150.00 in February of 1892.