Roosevelt School Auditorium and Classroom Addition

The Roosevelt School Auditorium and Classroom Addition are the only surviving elements of Mission's once-segregated school system. Located on the site traditionally reserved for Mission's "Mexican School", they are significant for their contributions to the city's ethnic heritage and their association with the Hispanic population. In 1921, the Mission Independent School District (ISD) built a separate school in South Mission to educate Mexican-American children. Originally called South Mission Grammar School and later named Roosevelt School for Theodore Roosevelt, the building was the third school on the site. It served Mission's Hispanic community from 1921 to 1968. The School District added an auditorium to the campus in 1929 and a classroom addition circa 1949. These additions are the only parts of the original campus still standing and are, in fact, the district's only surviving historic school buildings. The buildings are significant at the local level for their association with Mission's early 20th-century institutional development and can be identified with the historic context, Grapefruit's Lone Star Home: The Development Of Mission, Texas.
Nominated to the National Register under Criterion A, in the area of Hispanic ethnic heritage, the buildings are the only remaining vestiges of the important institution that was a common experience and a cohesive community center for Mission's Hispanic citizens. Also significant in the area of education, the Roosevelt School Auditorium and Classroom Addition are reflective of the school system's many construction and expansion projects during the economic boom and subsequent population growth that began in the 1910s, accelerated in the 1920s and continued through into the post-World War II era. The buildings are modest surviving examples of the Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival styles that were applied to nearly all the institutional buildings in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the first half of the 20th century. Due to alterations and the removal of the original classroom complex, they are not eligible for National Register listing.

The segregated school system in the Mission Independent School District mirrored the attitudes and physical boundaries of the town's settlement patterns. The mostly Midwestern Anglo settlers that founded Mission and promoted the surrounding agricultural lands expressed their attitude toward the Hispanic population by advertising them as a cheap labor force in promotional literature (Rattler Sept 1916). Most of the newcomers to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in the early 20th century were unfamiliar with Hispanic customs. Some, particularly the Federal troops who had been stationed in the Valley in the 1910s and had returned to buy land, remembered border raids and tensions during the so-called "Bandit Era" associated with the Mexican Revolution. This atmosphere of unfamiliarity and perhaps distrust, along with severe economic disparity between the two distinct groups, fostered segregation in Mission. Most of the Anglos settled in areas north of the railroad tracks and Hispanics typically lived south of the tracks. The segregated public school system in the town reflected and strengthened this trend.

Block 60, which contains Mission's Roosevelt School Auditorium and Classroom Addition, has been the site of the segregated schools for Hispanic children since 1910, virtually since the city's founding. A tiny frame building, the original school was severely damaged in a storm, and a new, more substantial "Mexican School" was built on the block in 1916. By 1920, South Mission had become densely populated, due in part to the Mexican Revolution, which brought many refugees to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. As a result, the school designated for Hispanic children was overcrowded within a few years of its construction. In 1921, the Mission ISD built Roosevelt School on this block for a total cost of $22,000. Sanborn maps identified the new building simply as the "Mexican School" through 1949. The 1916 school building was converted for use as an auditorium. Just three years later, a new grammar school was constructed in North Mission and opened at an expense of $52,097.75, more than twice the cost of the "Mexican School" (undated letter, School Board Minutes Sept 26, 1949).

Roosevelt School was the only public grammar school for Hispanic children, most of whom lived south of the railroad tracks, until the 1930s. The Mission ISD School Board stated in 1924 that the "system adopted and followed in our district [is], that all Mexican children living south of the railroad are supposed to attend South Mission schools until they complete the sixth grade, after which they are eligible to the seventh grade in North Mission schools" (School Board Minutes 26 Sept 1924). By 1934, Mission's Hispanic population had increased so much that Roosevelt School could accommodate only First through Third grades. Hispanic children entering the Fourth Grade were admitted to North Mission School for the first time in 1934 (Mission Times Silver Anniversary Edition 1934).

Many new schools were constructed in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during a period of rapid growth in the 1920s. Developers promoted the accredited school system and construction of new schools to prospective buyers back East as an advantage of moving to the Valley. Roosevelt was depicted as a model "Mexican School" in such promotional literature as Monty's Monthly, a magazine that highlighted the Lower Rio Grande Valley's progressive attributes to non-residents. Roosevelt School was advertised as the only accredited school for the exclusive use of Spanish-speaking people in the state and "one of only four schools in Texas conducted along scientific lines for Mexican children." Roosevelt School's curriculum included the mastery of elementary school subjects, the elements of the English language, and the fundamentals of health, sanitation, and patriotism (The Plain Facts 1927).

Like nearly all of the schools built in the Lower Rio Grande Valley from the 1910s through the 1930s, Roosevelt School employed a variety of Spanish-influenced design features such as arched windows and doorways and a flat roof with a Mission-style parapet wall and clay tile. Although Spanish-influenced styles were popular for institutional and residential buildings throughout the country during that period, they seemed particularly appropriate in the Southwest, which enjoyed authentic Spanish Colonial architectural traditions
The expansion of Mission schools included improvements to Roosevelt School in the 1920s.
The Mission Independent School District awarded a contract to J. E. Walsh and Company to build a new auditorium for Roosevelt School in September 1928. Walsh was a prominent builder of schools, churches, hospitals, and municipal buildings in South Texas. J. E. Walsh and Company completed the auditorium in 1929. The facility included a twenty-year bonded, or guaranteed Barrett Roof and 624 new opera chairs (School Board Minutes, various dates 1928). The district continued to expand its facilities during the 1930s and 1940s and added a classroom addition to the Roosevelt School circa 1949. Like the auditorium, Madero brick was used in the construction of the classroom addition and, although the classroom building is about 20 years newer than the auditorium, the brick color and pattern are nearly identical to that of the older building. Another classroom building was added to the campus, west of the auditorium, about 1965. Unlike the c. 1949 classroom addition, the new building did not adopt the brick and design features of the auditorium and earlier school and is a non-contributing feature of the property.

The Roosevelt School campus was used until 1968 when an Accrediting Team condemned the original 1921 Roosevelt School building for safety reasons, and the school district razed the building. The c. 1949 classroom addition and the auditorium are the only parts of the original Roosevelt School that are extant. They stood vacant until the school board renovated both buildings and added another addition to serve as an alternative school in 1978 (Musser October 27, 1998). Like the c. 1965 classroom building, the alternative school addition is a non-contributing feature of the property.

The Roosevelt School Auditorium is Mission Independent School District's oldest surviving educational facility, and the only example of the Spanish Colonial/Mission Revival influenced architecture common to the District's many construction projects during the early years of growth and development in Mission in the 1920s. Although built in 1949, the Classroom Addition exhibits modest architectural features that were in keeping with the 1921 school complex and 1929 Auditorium. Historically associated with the town's Hispanic school since 1916, four different school buildings have stood on the site. No archeological investigations were undertaken because they were outside the scope of services, however, such efforts should be considered in the future, as the area is likely to yield valuable information about the area's early educational facility, as well as its Hispanic culture. The Roosevelt School Auditorium and Classroom are also associated with the segregated education system that reflected broader settlement patterns in Mission as well as attitudes throughout the Lower Rio Grande Valley well into the third quarter of the twentieth century.