{"id":469,"date":"2013-09-11T23:10:32","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T03:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getitright.pmss.net\/?page_id=469"},"modified":"2017-09-09T23:26:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T03:26:45","slug":"mary-sinclair-burkham-memorial-school-house-ii","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/?page_id=469","title":{"rendered":"MARY SINCLAIR BURKHAM MEMORIAL SCHOOL HOUSE II"},"content":{"rendered":"
Pine Mountain Settlement School
\nSeries 10: BUILT ENVIRONMENT
\nBurkham School House II, 1919 – 1983<\/h5>\n

MARY SINCLAIR BURKHAM MEMORIAL SCHOOL HOUSE II<\/h2>\n
\"Burkham

Burkham School House II. Before 1965. [burkham_school_011.jpg]<\/p><\/div>\n

Construction of the Mary Sinclair Burkham Memorial School House II began in 1919 soon after\u00a0the\u00a0disastrous fire that destroyed the original Mary Sinclair Burkham\u00a0School House I<\/a>\u00a0in January 1919. The second School House\u00a0was dedicated\u00a0in October 1919 but finished in 1920. The money to re\u00a0-build\u00a0the School House\u00a0was again given by Caroline Burkham\u00a0in memory of her sister Mary Sinclair Burkham. Her original generous donation of $13,712.00 had built the first School House\u00a0and her second generous donation of $6,000 plus the insurance money of $10,000 from the first School House\u00a0were\u00a0nearly sufficient\u00a0to construct the new building.<\/p>\n

Determined that the new structure would not endanger other buildings by being built close to them, the new School House was relocated\u00a0to a plot of ground some distance from the (old) Laurel House and across Isaac’s Creek from the other classroom buildings. The second structure, which largely modeled the first, was a two-story\u00a0wooden frame building which contained three large classrooms, two offices, a library “stackroom\u00a0with 3500 well selected\u00a0books, reading room, small auditorium, and [a] very adequate high stage, [and] outside toilets.” The construction is described\u00a0as being “hurried” and the lumber was not properly cured, being described as “green.” Further, the floor of the building rested on the ground in some places and the boggy nature of the site created substantial\u00a0sagging of structural members and buckling of flooring in later years. The chimney was also inadequate and a fire hazard and in the summer of 1941 the chimney flue was removed and rebuilt “using flue lining which it had not had before.”<\/p>\n

In later years, the building underwent a series of reconstructions including the insertion of\u00a0three steel I-beams to give added support to the second floor of the building. Further, the assembly hall floor on the ground level was shored up and was given new flooring to replace the buckled and heavily oiled boards from the original structure.<\/p>\n

In the main assembly hall on the first level there was hung a large oil canvas, approximately\u00a020′ x 20′ in size, that depicted the long view down the Pine Mountain valley. Painted as a team effort by Abby Winch\u00a0Christensen,<\/a> Fern Hayes,<\/a> and Mary Rogers<\/a>, it was first used as a backdrop for a Fair Day and exhibition held at the University of Kentucky experimental farm station at Quicksand near Manchester, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Behind the large stage were full dressing rooms and a large wardrobe room filled with elegant costumes used in many of the pageants and plays the School produced. Many of the costumes were sewn by the students and many came from donations of clothing to the school.<\/p>\n

In 1942 the building and equipment in Burkham\u00a0School House II were valued\u00a0at $17,477.00. In 1983 the School House again burned to the ground. There were no active classes in the building but the Environmental Education program used the building for its programs and the director, Burton Rogers<\/a>, had moved his office to the building. The loss of the director’s personal papers and many valuable records of the School can never be estimated. <\/span><\/p>\n

The loss of the building was painful to the many students whose lives had been touched\u00a0by the excellent teachers whose classes had been held in the structure. The building had come to be\u00a0a symbol of the settlement school’s educational commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t