Ritzville High School
a.k.a. Old Ritzville High School
7th Ave., between Columbia and Division Sts., Ritzville, WAFrom its position in a residential neighborhood slightly elevated above the business quarter of the town, the Old Ritzville High School commands views of the central business district and seemingly unending grain fields beyond. While the width and breadth of the skyline reduces all things man-made to insignificant proportions, the school building is immense in comparison to other structures in town, with exceptions being the newer high school and the towering grain storage elevators near the railroad tracks crossing the center of the city. While the school seems disproportionately large for the town, the structure's impressive size reflects the wealth and bounty of the land and the population it supported in the early years of the twentieth century. The Old Ritzville High School clearly illustrates, through distinctive characteristics, the pattern of features common to schoolhouses dating to the 1920s. From its "Collegiate Gothic" style to the materials used on its exterior, the building represents a type, period, and method of construction found in countless other educational structures of its day. Designed by George M. Rasque, the school was one of the noted architect's first of many such facilities, numerous of which reflected this earlier precedent in appearance and structural functionalism.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
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.