Harwood School
1114 7th St., NW, Albuquerque, NMThe origins of the Harwood Girls School go back to 1882, when the New Mexico Methodist missions asked Rev. Thomas Harwood to look for a site for a Methodist high school. This first school, called the Albuquerque College, opened in 1887, and was reformed in 1891 as the Harwood School. The school was divided into a Boy's Industrial School and Girl's School: the Boy's School, in the north valley, closed in 1926. The Girl's School, located first at 14th Street and then on 7th, was open through the early 1970's. Like Menaul High School, the Harwood Schools concentrated on the education of New Mexico Hispanos, and were in part what would now be called vocational schools, teaching trades and skills as well as reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The school has now become Methodist Center; behind it, to the east, is an associated group of Pueblo Revival buildings from ca. 1940 which is now the Asbury Community School. The Harwood School is important both for its architecture and for its important part in the history of education in New Mexico.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.