Sisters school building deemed historic

The Sisters school administration building on Highway 20 at the east end of town is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The formal listing action was taken on March 2, according to Christine Curran, nominations coordinator for the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office. She said her office will be sending out official notification letters by the end of March.

The honor comes to a structure that opened in 1939 as the Sisters High School. It was built to relieve overcrowding in a building across Highway 20 that housed all 12 grades.

The 1939 building operated as a high school until 1968, when the district closed its high school for lack of financial support and began sending its students to Redmond. After that, the structure was used for some years as part of the district’s middle school and at other times as an administrative office.

Last fall, with extensive interior remodeling but with the exterior appearance intact, the red brick structure assumed its latest role as the district’s central administration building. Superintendent Ted Thonstad, whose office is there, said that among other things the new status “should mean that we can apply for some grants that we haven’t been able to apply for” before. The grants could help offset the remodeling costs.

As it happened, the original 1939 building came into being thanks in part to an $8,550 grant from the Public Works Administration. The federal money supplemented a district bond issue of $14,000 that was approved overwhelmingly (64 to 10) in August of 1938.

Much of the credit for the success of the National Register effort goes to consultant Michael Hall of Madras, principal author of the written application. He stressed the building’s connection to the federal government’s historic effort to combat the Great Depression with public works projects such as schools.