3102 S 59TH ST, TACOMA

Item

Part of Tacoma-Pierce County Buildings Index

Barlow Annex Frederick Heath, arch. -Monticello Park Add. -address approximate -built in 1910 as the Edison Annex (to Edison Elementary School) -renamed the Barlow Annex in 1912 in honor of Orin Watts Barlow, longtime South Tacoma community activist, school board member and board president -home of Edison High School, later Barlow High School, from Sept. 1911 to June 1914, awaiting completion of the new Lincoln High School -head teacher and prinicipal William W. Parker was also Lincoln High's first principal -became the shop bldg. / manual arts bldg. for Gray Intermediate School in 1926 -plans at TPL TDN 9/10/1910 p.5 To accommodate thousand more pupils than last year at the Edison School (il) (hard copy only) TDL 9/11/1910 p.12 Two of the big new ones ready for tomorrow morning's "fatal" hour (il) TNT 3/9/1950 p.4 Half enough room (il) TNT 11/7/1961 p.21 South Side once had "Barlow High School" T. Star 9/20/1962 p.1 Two schools slated for additions (sketch of addition to Gray Junior High by Worthen, Wing, Seifert & Forbes, arch.) TNT 11/25/1964 Tacoma school unit dedicated as 600 watch (new Gray Junior High addition also connects the Barlow Annex with both Edison Elementary and Gray Junior High) TNT 6/8/1983 Gray Junior High defects barred ... earthquake threat TNT 6/12/2006 p.B1 Fresh focus on South Tacoma's past (il) T.Weekly 4/8/2011 p.A2 Veteran gathering support for Gray/Barlow site T.Weekly 5/6/2011 p.A6 Board approves demo ... TNT 9/24/2011 p.A3 A historic building sees long goodbye (il of demolition) 371.01 OL8F p.5,73,105 (il),131 371.62 C498R 379.797 H629H p.78,79,84,85,115 379.797 T11 1911-1914 979.72 H91 Vol.III p.440 (biography of Orin Watts Barlow) 979.7788 R278S p.52 (il) ----- -print at TPL (Richards Coll. #C52926-1, D48345-1)
Year Built: 1910
Decade Built: 1910s
Demolished: 2011

Item
1950-03-08

The students of Edison Elementary School stand in front of and peer out the windows of Gray Junior High's Barlow annex on March 8, 1950. Edison Elementary was badly damaged by the big 1949 earthquake, but the full extent of the damages was not realized until engineering studies were completed in February 1950. The school was condemned and ordered closed. With their school suddenly closed, the 540 Edison students had to attend classes in the Gray Jr. High annex - in double shifts. At Edison, the children had filled nineteen classrooms. In the annex building, they were squeezed into nine classrooms with half attending 8 a.m.- 12:15p.m., and the second shift attending 12:30p.m. - 4:45p.m. The children peering from the windows are about to leave, to make way for the second shift waiting outside. (TNT 3/10/1950 pg. 4)

Gray Junior High School (Tacoma); Public schools--Tacoma; School children--Tacoma--1950-1960; Edison Elementary School (Tacoma); Earthquakes--Tacoma;

Edison School Annex

File
3-28-1910

Part of Lost Tacoma Project Collection

One of 14 technical drawings for the Edison School Annex, created by Frederick Henry Heath on March 28, 1910. Renamed in 1912 to the Barlow Annex after South Tacoma community activist Orin Watts Barlow. The structure was demolished in 2011.

Frederick Henry Heath was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin in 1861 and graduated from Powell's Academy, a parochial institution created by Rev William R. Powell in Caledonia, Minnesota. Heath moved to Tacoma in 1893 and formed a partnership with Ambrose James Russell and A. Walter Spaulding in 1901. It was during this partnership that Heath would become the School Architect for the Tacoma School District from 1903 through 1920, when he had moved on to partner with George Gove and draftsman Herbert A. Bell as Heath, Gove & Bell. Towards the end of his life, Heath collaborated with his son Frederick Jr. to help promote and sell his invention, "Heath Cubes," a square, hollow tile building material.