Delphi Schoolhouse

About

Historic Delphi Schoolhouse
This 100+ year old Schoolhouse building is owned and operated by the Delphi Community Club. Available for rentals. 943-6437

Story

The Delphi Community Club was established in 1944 to promote the social welfare of the Delphi community. To this day it is composed of all volunteer members who live in the community. We are dedicated to preserving the Delphi Schoolhouse and providing a social center for the Delphi area.

The Delphi Schoolhouse was built in 1910 and is one of the finest surviving examples of the one room schoolhouse which were once common throughout Washington. Many were built from a common design, but most have been converted and added onto, torn down, or been lost in other ways. This Schoolhouse is listed on the Thurston County, Washington State, and National Historic Registers. It still retains it's original slate chalkboards, cloakroom, fir floor, front porch, windows, and other features. You can see the ink stains where the desks were lined up and the students would spill ink as they used their inkwells. If you listen carefully you can hear the students chatter and the schoolteacher giving the daily lesson.

The current schoolhouse is the second Delphi Schoolhouse. The first schoolhouse was located on the east side of Delphi Rd. and was a converted dwelling put into use about 1892. The new schoolhouse was built on the west side of Delphi Rd. in 1910, hosting grades 1-8 until 1942. Originally there was no electricity or running water. Light was natural light through the large north facing double-hung windows that line the north wall and the upper story west windows.

The Mud Bay Logging Company was active in the area and Delphi even had it's own U.S. Post Office. Around 1919 when the old growth timber ran out, the logging company pulled up the rail lines and the hills began the slow recovery that today provides the scenic views in the area. While signs of logging are still visible from current harvests, there is much more regulation and the complete clear cutting of all the hills will never happen again.

The Delphi Schoolhouse was deeded to the Delphi Community Club in 1944 for use as a community meeting hall. Many dances and celebrations were held there as the years went by. By the late 1970's the building was becoming quite run down. With great community spirit the building was re-roofed and the inside was refurbished. Through the 1980's the schoolhouse was the scene of many contentious meetings about the new county-wide zoning changes. With great determination the Delphi community was able to gain a great deal of protection for the rural Delphi area, the results of which are apparent to this day as you drive down Delphi Rd.

By the 1990's the schoolhouse was again showing it's age. By now it had achieved listed historical status, which afforded protection against conversion. But the inside was filled with peeling paint and worn out bathrooms. On the outside the paint was peeling, the chimney was eroding, the porches need re-roofing and so on. After a huge effort to replace the bell tower, including the working bell, as was originally located on the roof, the Community Club turned it's efforts towards raising funds to move forward with more renovations. In recent years we have re-plastered and painted all the interior walls and ceiling, remodeled both bathrooms, repaired sagging foundations, replaced porch roofs, rebuilt the chimney top, as was originally located on the roof, repaired windows, painted the entire exterior, replaced the well cover, built a new entrance gate, and many more projects too numerous to list. Our next big project will be a roofing replacement in the summer of 2014. The Delphi Community Club been setting money aside for this for several years now. We have received a Thurston County Heritage Grant which will reimburse us for part of the cost after we install the new roof. We are all looking forward to the future, our hope is to preserve this fine building for the generations to come.

We are able to rent the schoolhouse to the public for meetings, weddings, anniversaries, memorials, birthdays, etc. For rental information you can contact us at 943-6437.

The Delphi Schoolhouse is located at 7601 Delphi Rd SW.

Mission

Preserving the past for the future by preserving and maintaining our heritage.