OFFICE

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 10: BUILT ENVIRONMENT (Physical Plant)
Office
1918 – present

DSCF0006

The Office in recent years. Photographed in late afternoon by H. Wykle [DCF0006.jpg]

OFFICE, 1918 – present


TAGS: Office, administration, administrative offices, 1918-1919, fieldstone, Office christening, Director’s Office, stone veneers, furnaces, toilet facilities, hitching posts, maple trees, dentist clinic, voters, staff meetings, visitor center, former Archive location


The Office was constructed in 1918-1919 at a cost of $4,014.00. The progress of its construction was reported in the October 1919 issue of Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School:

The Office Building is nearly ready for use — indeed, two offices are already serving as temporary schoolrooms. Only the inside of this building is finished at present; the fieldstone exterior must wait until the Mary Sinclair Burkham Schoolhouse is made ready for occupancy. That building is now being roofed and we expect to use it this winter, although another summer season will be required to finish both these two new buildings.

…In August, Dr. Raymond Grant and his assistant, Dr. Arthur Welch, of Louisville, came to the School for a week to hold a dental clinic. Our new office building was christened on that occasion.

The above quote was probably written by Evelyn K. Wells  as she notes in her Excerpts from Letters Home in 1919 that

The Office is nearly ready to move into. Doors and windows hung, staining all done, etc. But, we may have to use it for school for a while, so we won’t move in till that is over,. This week, too, the dentist comes for two weeks’ work on the children and the neighbors, and his clinic will be held at the Office, Then we’ll move in!

New floors were put in the building in the summer of 1941. At that time the building and equipment were valued at $5,012.00.

The construction consists of a one-story stone veneer probably laid in by Andy Dorsky an expert stone mason who was working at the School in 1919. The structure contains six rooms, two of which are small, and a large central [entry] area. The building is heated by a furnace. At the time this description was written in 1941 there were no toilet facilities. The description noted that “The walls were stained a dark brown, making the rooms very dark. Two need artificial light most of the time.”

Throughout its 100 years, the Office has served the School in a variety of ways besides its original intent as an office building. It has provided space for a schoolroom, a printshop, a dental clinic, a polling station, and the PMSS archives. Today, this humble stone building continues to be the central focus of the School’s operations, accommodating several office workers as well as the director of the School.


GALLERY: The Office


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BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Title

Office

Alt. Title

Office Building

Identifier

OFFICE

Creator

Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY

Alt. Creator

Mary Rockwell Hook

Subject Keyword

Office ; Pine Mountain Settlement School ; Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ; Office Building ; Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School ; schoolrooms ; fieldstone ; Mary Sinclair Burkham Schoolhouse ; Dr. Raymond Grant ; Dr. Arthur Welch ; dental clinics ; Office christening ; stone veneers ; furnaces ; toilet facilities ; Tool House I ; Katherine Pettit ; Laurel House ; facades ; Infirmary ; Jubilee ; Laurel House field ; hitching posts ; maple trees ; voters ; Election Day ; staff ; Margaret Nace ;

Subject LCSH

Office — Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History.
Architecture — Pine Mountain Settlement School.
Pine Mountain Settlement School (Pine Mountain, Ky.) — History.
Harlan County (Ky.) — History.
Historic Buildings — Kentucky — Appalachia.
Rural schools — Kentucky — History.
Schools — Appalachian Region, Southern.

Date Digital

2001-05-27 ; 2013-09-27 ;

Publisher

Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY

Contributor

n/a

Type

Collections ; text ; image ;

Format

Original and copies of JPG images, documents, and correspondence in file folders in filing cabinet

Source

Series 10: Built Environment (Physical Plant)

Language

English

Relation

Is related to: Pine Mountain Settlement School Collections, Series 10: Built Environment (Physical Plant) ; Kentucky Virtual Library collections <http://www.kyvl.org/> [searchable]
Berea College Southern Appalachian Archives <http://www.berea.edu/library/Special/saarchives.html>
Transylvania College Archives <http://www.transy.edu/libspcoll.html>
Univ. of KY Appalachian Archives <http://libraries.uky.edu/libpage.php?lweb_id=84&llib_id=13>
National Historic Landmarks Database <http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1756&ResourceType=District>

Coverage Temporal

1918 – present

Coverage Spatial

Pine Mountain, KY ; Harlan County, KY ;

Rights

Any display, publication, or public use must credit the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Copyright retained by the creators of certain items in the collection, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Donor

n/a

Description

Core documents, correspondence, writings, and administrative papers about the Office ; clippings, photographs, books about the Office ;

Acquisition

Constructed 1918-1919

Citation

Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers, Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY

Processed By

Helen Hayes Wykle ; Ann Angel Eberhardt ;

Last Updated

2002-07-01 hw ; 2004-11-30 hw ; 2013-09-27 hw ; 2014-05-19 aae ; 2019-09-05 aae ; 2022-01-10 hhw ; 2023-04-06 aae ;

Bibliography

Sources

Notes from the Pine Mountain Settlement School. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. (October 1919): 1-2. Internet resource.

Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY. Archival material.

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BUILT ENVIRONMENT