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Overview

This educational building had several confusing name changes and became a versatile facility for the Seattle Public Schools, serving as an elementary, middle and high school. A notable design in the Tudor Revival mode, the Franklin School was last used in the late 1960s before being demolished.

Building History

Designed by the Seattle Public Schools' architect, James Stephen (1958-1938), the facility opened as the "Franklin School" in the fall of 1906. It was one of five schools that Stephen designed and supervised in 1905-1906, including Lincoln High School, Daniel Bagley School, Latona School and Isaac I. Stevens School. The Seattle SundayTimes reported that the Franklin School, budgeted at $59.459, was a "...twenty-roomed building being erected at the corner of Nineteenth Avenue and Main Street. The style of architecture is Old English, half timbered work. The basement story has battered walls of red paving brick laid in black mortar, the two upper stories being frame construction, with half timbered work and plastered paneling in [the] upper half. This building contains twenty regular class rooms, with two additional rooms in the basement for manual training and domestic work. The building will accommodate 1,000 pupils. A portion of this building will [be] used to take the overflow from High School until the new [Lincoln] High School is completed, which will not be before July 1907. This building will be completed by July 15 of this year. The gross dimensions of this building are 114 by 167 feet." (See "School Buildings Under Way," Seattle Sunday Times, 06/24/1906, p. 53.)

From 1909 until 1912, it served upper level secondary students as the "Benjamin Franklin High School". A new Franklin High School was built by architect Edgar Blair (1871-1924) in 1912, requiring this location to change its name. The Tudor building became the "Washington School," accommodating students in grades 1-8 from 1912-1938, and was renamed the "Washington 7th and 8th Grade Center" from 1938-1946. After the war, the school system rechristened the building, "George Washington Junior High School," and it remained this until 1963. The Seattle Public Schools located its Occupational Guidance Center here from 1963 until 1967, a branch of the district's Adult and Vocational Division. (See Cedar Park Elementary Landmark Nomination Report Supplement Seattle Public Schools built between 1945 and 1965 (excluding schools gained through annexation), "Washington School," (Seattle: The Johnson Partnership, 2012), p. 1.)

Building Notes

For a time during the 1910s, four special education and kindergarten classes were located at this school, the former left this facility in 1917. A school for the deaf utilized four classrooms here beginning in the 1912-1913 school year.

Alteration

Between 1906 and 1946, the school's grounds increased from 1.41 acres to 2.4.

Demolition

The Franklin School was razed.

PCAD id: 10128