Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 10: Built Environment
Draper Building 1936
Draper Industrial Arts Building
Jessi Preston Draper Building

TAGS: Draper Building, Jessie Preston Draper Building, Draper Industrial Arts Building, industrial arts, school building, classrooms, Jessie Preston Draper, Helen Draper Ayer, 1936, Mary Rockwell Hook, architect, print shop, industrial arts. art classes, Community School rooms, Darwin D. Martin, Greycliff, Buffalo, NY, science classes, auto mechanics, crafts, ceramics, weaving studio, garage,

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DRAPER INDUSTRIAL ARTS BUILDING, 1936-

Draper Industrial Arts Building was planned and constructed to replace the Boy’s Industrial Building which burned in 1935. The construction of the much larger building took many months to gather funding and to construct. It finally came into being as the result of a generous donation from Jessie Preston Draper and her daughter, Helen Draper Ayer, in 1936.

While the original Boy’s Industrial Building housed the Industrial Arts program, the Draper Industrial Building was planned to add classroom space and lab space for the growing science programs at the School during the boarding school days. It had space for a woodwork shop, a print shop, and on the lower level, a mechanic shop. The new science labs included a unique aquatic pond on the second level in a glassed-in area known as the “atrium.”

Today the “atrium” is no longer found. The building has had several modifications. Today the modified building houses many of the main classrooms, as well as offices, for the Environmental Education programs at the School and includes numerous artifacts, live reptiles and other native fauna.

The basic structure of the building is rectangular in shape and today comprises three stories. Typical of the designs of Mary Rockwell Hook, the original building was constructed with flat roofs and castellations for both the central structure as well as the west wing and was only a two-story structure. The signature of the center building is the yellow cut stone which dominates the facade of the structure and includes a two-tiered exterior stair that leads directly to the second level. To the left of the central structure is a one-story wing that continues to house the woodworking shop. A gable roof covers both the west wing and the central structure. On the lower level, planned as a mechanics area, are three garage doors that provide access to one long room with a poured concrete floor.

The building has undergone multiple restorations as well as revisions to the original plan.  For example, the following letter to  Ruth Creech, wife of Charles Creech, from Milly Mahoney tries to get to the bottom of some of the changes that have taken place in the building since its construction,

October 21, 1999 Milly Mahoney writes:

Thanks for your note, and the picture. We have several photos Of Draper Building being built, but none at this particular stage. We’ve looked at Draper pictures a lot in connection with plans for restoring the building. I’m glad to have this to add to the folder.

The picture raises a question in my mind. Will you please ask Charles if he has any memory which would answer It! It looks to me as if the “front doors,” which are now sliding overhead doors, don’t come down to ground level in that picture. In fact, they look like windows. I realize that this appearance could be caused by the angle from which the picture was taken, or maybe the road level might have been raised when it was graded after construction was finished. If it’s possible. however, that they were windows, this would be interesting information. Whatever historical group it is that we
hope will allocate some funds is particularly interested in “restoration,” and would like for everything to be as it was Originally, regardless Of what current usefulness would suggest. Since we no longer keep vehicles there (fire safety regulation, since there are classrooms overhead, not taken into account during all the public school years,) I don’t think the doors are necessary for access. Anyway, it would be good to know!

The windows in the structure are of several varieties including 6/6 double-hung windows and metal casement windows. The metal casement windows underwent substantial restoration during the early 2003 – 2005 as part of a Save America’s Treasures restoration grant. When the remodeling was initiated in the 1940s the flat roofs were removed and an additional story was gained for the building by adding a board and batten third story. A new metal roof was installed on the central structure in 2011.

The following images trace the changes in the building over time.

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GALLERY

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Title	Draper Industrial Building
Alt. Title	Jesse Preston Draper Building ; Draper Industrial Arts Building ; Draper Industrial ;
Identifier	Permalink: https://pinemountainsettlement.net/?page_id=5695
Creator	Pine Mountain Settlement School
Alt. Creator	Mary Rockwell Hook
Subject Keyword :	Pine Mountain Settlement School ; Draper Industrial Arts Building ; Boy’s Industrial Building ; donations ; Jessie Preston Draper ; Helen Draper Ayer ; Industrial Arts ; classrooms ; laboratories ; science programs ; woodworking ; print shop ; mechanic shop ; aquatic pond ; atrium ; Environmental Education ; Mary Rockwell Hook ; castellations ; yellow cut stone ; metal casement windows ; double-hung windows ; Save America’s Treasures restoration grant ;
Subject LCSH	Draper Industrial Building — Pine Mountain Settlement School — History Draper Industrial Building — Pine Mountain Settlement School — Architecture Education — Appalachian Region Pine Mountain Settlement School — History Rural schools — Appalachian Region, Southern Rural schools — Kentucky — History Schools — Appalachian Region Farms — Appalachian Region Hook, Mary Rockwell Pettit, Katherine Zande, Ethel de Long
Date	2001-05-27 ; 2013-12-31 ;
Publisher	Pine Mountain Settlement School
Type	collection ; image ; text ;
Format	Documents ; collection of photographs ; misc. formats ; photograph albums ;
Source	Series 10: Built Environment
Language	English
Relation	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 <gopher://gopher.uky.edu/1MENU%20LIBRARY%21191/APPAL.INFO> 3D Pine Mountain Settlement School <http://www.kingdomcome.org/maps/pmss.html> National Historic Landmarks Database <http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1756&ResourceType=District>
Coverage temporal	1936 –
Coverage spatial	Kentucky and the Southern Appalachians
Rights	Any display, publication, or public use must credit 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 papers describing Draper Industrial Arts Building ; clippings, photographs, books by or about [full name] ;
Acquisition	n/a
Citation	“[Identification of Item],” [Collection Name] [Series Number, if applicable]. Pine Mountain Settlement School Institutional Papers. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Pine Mountain, KY.
Processed by	Helen Hayes Wykle, 2002-07-01 ; 2013-12-31 hw ; 2022-01-10 hhw ;
Last updated	2006-11-01 ; 2012-07-01 hw ; 2013-12-31 hw ; 2016-02-17 aae ; 2016-03-12 aae ; 2019-09-11 hhw;

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