Structure Type: representations - drawings - plans
Designers: [unspecified]
Dates: constructed 1911
Building History
The George Junior Republic community, what later became known as the "Boys Republic," was first laid out by Pasadena architect Myron Hunt in 1911. According to the Boys Republic web site: "Hunt’s overall plan for the Boys Republic village took inspiration from the colony of George Junior Republic, in Freeville, New York, the model for such programs at that time. The plan originally called for a schoolhouse, twelve to fifteen cottages, shops, an administration building, hotel and chapel. The center of village life was – and still is – a plaza 500 feet across. All of the roads connecting different parts of the campus were looped and curved, owing to the hillside contours upon which the settlement was situated." (See Boys Republic, "Our Legacy: Myron Hunt," accessed 06/13/2016.) William Reuben George (1866-1936) founded his first "George Junior Republic" in the rural New York town of Freeville in 1890. Here, he sought to turn around delinquent boys by giving them the responsibility for living close to nature, on their own.
PCAD id: 20223