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Inventory Form
NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address:7688 SW Capitol Hwy historic name:Multnomah School
Portland, Multnomah County current/other names:Multnomah Arts Center
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:1S 1E 20
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:Building height (stories):1.0 total elig resources:7 total inelig resources:2
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1923 second date:1952 date indiv listed:03/04/2020
primary orig use: School orig use comments:
second orig use: RECR/CULTURE: General
primary style: Late 19th/20th Period Revivals: Other prim style comments:
secondary style: Spanish Revival sec style comments:
primary siding: Stucco siding comments:
secondary siding:
plan type: architect:Goodrich & Goodrich; George Jones (Addition Architect)
builder:Waale-Shattuck Construction
comments/notes:
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Not associated with any surveys or groupings.
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 03/04/2020
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date:
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The Multnomah School is located at 7688 SW Capitol Hwy., roughly five miles southwest of downtown Portland and a quarter-mile east of the Multnomah Village commercial area. The site is approximately six acres, located along SW Capitol Hwy. between SW 31st and SW 34th Aves. The surrounding area to the north, east, and south is predominately residential. To the west is a streetcar-era commercial area in a neighborhood main street setting. The one-story unreinforced masonry Spanish Colonial Revival-style Multnomah School was constructed in 1923 as a permanent replacement for temporary school structures built a decade prior. It is clad in stucco with self-mullioned multilight steel-sash windows and a red clay-tile shed roof at the perimeter. The school consists of classrooms as well as an auditorium and boys’ and girls’ play areas. In 1925, the play areas were enclosed and became gymnasiums. In 1929, a 5,000 square-foot addition of similar materials and design was built along the east. In the early 1940s, two free-standing classroom structures were added to the campus southwest of the school; six more were added at the west in the late 1940s. In 1979, the school closed. In 1984, it was adapted as a community arts center. The period of significance runs from the construction of the 1923 school building to the completion of the last major school alteration, which was the construction of the cafeteria in 1952. The complex consists of seven contributing resources and two non-contributing. The contributing resources are all buildings and include the main school building with 1925 and 1929 additions as a single functionally-related, interconnected contributing resource. They also include the six one-time portable, now permanent, rectangular classrooms located at the west of the property. Built circa 1940, these classroom buildings are of approximately identical massing, scale, and design. Each structure is 1,200 square-feet, wood-clad with hipped roof and comprising a single room. As for the non-contributing resources, there is one non-contributing building and one non-contributing structure. The one non-contributing building is a pottery shed, which comprises five interconnected structures, including three built outside the period of significance. It is non-contributing due to a lack of integrity. There is also a 4,750 square-foot open steel shed built in 1977, which is a non-contributing structure having been built outside the period of significance. Character-defining landscape features include street set backs from SW Capitol Hwy. and SW 31st St., as well as adjacent open space to the west and south making up the original site parcel. Though adapted largely for parking, the amount of land and space associated with the property is integral to its significance as a school as it creates a park-like atmosphere reflective of progressive-era school design. Character features for the school include building orientation, building form, exterior cladding, extant steel-sash windows, roof form and materials, interior organization, corridor plaster walls with wood trim, and original corridor ceiling tiles. In addition to the corridors being critical interior features, the auditorium and two gymnasiums are important intact interior spaces and are character-defining as such. The complex retains a very high degree of integrity with no substantial alterations outside the period of significance.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Multnomah School was built in 1923 and expanded in 1929 on a 6-acre parcel that was acquired in 1913 for the original Multnomah School. The property is nominated at the local level under Criterion A for Education and under Criterion C for Architecture. The period of significance is 1923-1952, the year the school opened until the last major addition, the school cafeteria, which completed the full extent of the school. Regarding Criterion A, and the area of significance for Education, Multnomah School served as the community’s only school until its closure in 1979. The inspiration and construction of the school represents the community’s embrace of and commitment to public education as a core social value and the belief for over a half century that education is the key to a successful life. Its original construction and design, as well as its expansion and operation through the years, are reflective of the progressive education values not only of the community but the city generally. Similarly, the property is locally significant under Criterion C for Architecture as an example of a building type, specifically constructed to meet professional architectural standards for school design and to support the execution of a progressive educational philosophy. While locally significant to the Multnomah Village community, in comparison with similar Portland city resources, the school is a superior representative of the city-wide educational values that prompted extensive school construction in the decade following World War I. Compared to other elementary schools of the era, Multnomah School fully exemplifies the education and associated architectural values being promoted by School District No. 1, while maintaining a higher degree of integrity than most comparable resources. With a very high degree of integrity, it is a near-textbook example of school architecture in the era and thus is important as a building type.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society:Oregon Historical Society Other Respository:
Bibliography:
Challman, S. A. The Rural School Plant. Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1921. Davis, Marguerite Norris. “History of the Community of Multnomah.” Oregon Historical Quarterly. December 1946. pp. 407-416. Davis, Marguerite Norris and Tulley, Cecil R. The Building of a Community. Portland, OR: Cecil R. Tulley, 1976. Donavan, John. J. School Architecture: Principles and Practices. New York, NY: The McMillan Co., 1921. Entrix. Portland Public Schools: Historic Building Assessment. Portland, OR: Portland, Public Schools, 2009. Ferriday, Virginia Guest, et. al. Historic Resources Inventory of Portland. Portland, OR: City of Portland, 1984. Labbe, John T. Fares, Please: Those Portland Trolley Years. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, 1980. MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915-1950. Portland, OR: The Georgian Press, 1979. MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Shaping of the City: Business and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1885 to 1915. Portland, OR: The Georgian Press, 1976. McArthur, Lewis A. Oregon Geographic Names. Portland, OR: Western Imprints, 1982. Mills, Randall V. “Early Electric Interurbans in Oregon,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, XLIV: December 1943, pp. 386-410. Mills, Wilber T. American School Building Standards. Columbus, OH: Franklin Educational Publishing Company, 1910. Portland Landmarks Commission. Potential Historic Conservation Districts. Portland, OR: City of Portland, 1978. Powers, Alfred and Corning, Howard McKinley. History of Education in Portland. Portland, OR: WPA, 1937. Ritz, Richard E., FAIA. Architects of Oregon. Portland, OR: Lair Hill Publishing, 2002. Staehli, Alfred M. Preservation Options for Portland Neighborhoods. Portland, OR: NEA, 1974. Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Oregon. Twenty-Second Biennial Report. Twenty-Ninth Legislative Assembly, Regular Session, 1917. Swanson, Lowell. Multnomah School, 1913-1979. Portland, OR: Multnomah Historical Association, 2001. OTHER SOURCES Multnomah Arts Center microfilm Multnomah County Tax Assessor Records Multnomah Historical Association Archives Oregon Historic Sites Database