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East Coulee School

East Coulee

Other Names:
East Coulee School Museum

Statement of Significance

Description of Historic Place
East Coulee School is a single-storey, rectangular-shaped building. Relatively plain in appearance and clad in grey stucco, the school’s only embellishments are provided by three pediments, a series of white, pilaster-like decorative elements at the corners and along the east and west elevations and large banks of multi-paned windows. The school was built in two phases: the northernmost portion, consisting of four rooms and a partial basement, was built in 1930; the southern portion, consisting of an additional four rooms and a full basement with a science laboratory was added in the mid-1940s. The school is situated on a large lot in the centre of the community of East Coulee, a former mining town in the badlands of the Red Deer River Valley.

Heritage Value
The heritage value of East Coulee School lies in its representation of the development of educational institutions in Alberta’s rapidly growing, resource-based communities during the 1930s and 1940s.

The East Coulee School’s phased construction, fairly simple design and standardized plan, speak to the efforts being made in the 1930s and 1940s to provide education to the families of resource communities. East Coulee, like many natural resource-based communities, experienced rapid population growth as coal mines opened in the region in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by rapid population decline when those mines closed in the 1950s and 1960s. The school was built in 1930 to replace a number of smaller schools in the district, which had been overwhelmed by East Coulee’s burgeoning population. Built according to Provincial Department of Education’s standard plan F.E.2 the four-room, wood-frame school had a partial basement, a slightly-sloped roof behind parapets and separate entrances for girls and boys. Unlike most large schools in the province, which tended to be substantial brick buildings with gothic inspired details, the East Coulee School was nondescript with minimal ornamentation and was clad in gray stucco. The only ornamental elements being triangular pediments along the roof line and a series of raised, white cement panels giving the illusion of pilasters and breaking the facades into a series of bays. The most striking features are the tall, narrow, multi-paned windows arranged in large banks of six for the classrooms and as pairs for the teachers’ lounge and singles for washrooms, following provincial standards of the time. The East Coulee School is strikingly similar to a school built in 1931 at Black Diamond, a coal-mining and oil town near Turner Valley strongly suggesting a pattern of standardized design and stylistic elements for schools that could be built relatively quickly in Alberta’s resource-based communities.

Although it was a substantial building in a community of East Coulee’s size, the community’s population quickly outgrew the new school and plans were made for expansion. The new addition, built in 1943/44 contained four classrooms and a full basement with a science laboratory. The addition, attached to the south side of the 1930s building was a simpler structure with no pediments and a parapet on only the north and west sides. The exterior of the addition continues the ornamentation theme of the original school, being clad in gray stucco with raised, white cement highlights and tall multi-paned windows arranged in the same basic pattern. Interestingly, the addition did not include either a gymnasium or an auditorium, which were being added to many existing schools through this period. The omission of these standard additions may have been of necessity, allowing the school’s expansion to be accomplished that much faster and may reflect doubts had by officials regarding the long-term stability of a community so heavily reliant on coal mining. Like many other natural resource-based communities and mining towns, East Coulee experienced a population collapse nearly as dramatic as its initial growth. By 1960 all of the mines in the area had ceased operations and East Coulee’s population began to decline rapidly. The school closed in 1970 and went unused for more than a decade, before being restored and renovated through the 1980s and 1900s.

Source: Alberta Culture and Tourism, Historic Resources Management Branch (File: Des 1058)


Character-Defining Elements
Key elements that define the heritage value of East Coulee School include such elements as its:

Exterior
- rectangular footprint;
- exterior walls clad in gray stucco
- raised, white concrete decorative elements on the exterior walls arranged to simulate pilasters;
- parapet on all four sides of the 1930 (north) portion of the building with three pediments facing east, west and north;
- slightly-sloped gable roof hidden behind the parapet of the 1930 (north) portion;
- parapet on the south and east sides of the 1943/44 (south) portion of the school;
- slightly-sloped shed roof on the 1943/44 (south) portion;
- tall, narrow multi-paned windows arranged in bands of six for the classrooms, as pairs for the teacher’s lounge and as single windows for the washrooms;
- entrance vestibules situated on the north and south sides of the building;
- entrances with nine-light, wooden, double doors situated in the east-facing sides of the entrance vestibules, away from the prevailing winds;
- small hipped skylight towards the north end of the 1943/44 portion;
- painted board signage reading “1930 EAST COULEE VILLAGE S.D.N.4396” on an east-facing parapet and similar signs reading “GIRLS” and “BOYS” above the respective north and south entrances;
- school bell affixed to the east side.

Interior
- floor plan with all rooms located off a straight, central hallway;
- high (11 feet or more) ceilings throughout;
- extant historic hardware and hydraulics on the interior and entrance doors;
- extant historic interior woodwork, such as tongue-and-groove wainscoting, wood strip flooring, washroom stalls, chalk rails, window and door frames and doors;
- extant historic chalkboards;
- extant historic wall coverings, notably the gypsum board panels with wood strips in some of the classrooms;
- full basement under the 1940s portion and a partial basement and crawlspace under the 1930s portion;
- science lab with storage shelves, cupboards and counters with sinks located in the basement of the 1940s portion of the school;
- historic boiler in the basement (now non-functional and not in its original location);

Landscape
- pair of concrete, boot-cleaning troughs on the school’s east side;
- situation of the school building on a landscaped lot in the centre of the community.


Location



Street Address: 359 - 2 Avenue, East Coulee
Community: East Coulee
Boundaries: Portion of Block 14, Plan 4128EQ
Contributing Resources: Building

ATS Legal Description:
Mer Rge Twp Sec LSD
4
18
27
29
10 (ptn.)

PBL Legal Description (Cadastral Reference):
Plan Block Lot Parcel
4128EQ
14
N/A


Latitude/Longitude:
Latitude Longitude CDT Datum Type
51.338377 -112.495104

UTM Reference:
Northing Easting Zone CDT Datum Type

Recognition

Recognition Authority: Province of Alberta
Designation Status: Provincial Historic Resource
Date of Designation: 2017/01/16

Historical Information

Built: 1930 to 1930
Period of Significance: 1930 to 1970
Theme(s):
Historic Function(s): Education : Primary or Secondary School
Current Function(s):
Architect:
Builder:
Context: HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE

East Coulee was established in 1928 following the extension of a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) branch line from Rosedale and the opening of coalmines by the Murray Collieries Ltd. and Atlas Coal Company. Between 1928 and 1930 the hamlet of East Coulee evolved from a mining camp into an urban community with the addition of two restaurants, a drug store, seven grocery stores, two garages, two meat markets, a poolroom, a barbershop, a 20,000-dollar hotel and a moving picture theatre that was also used as a dance hall. There were also, by 1930, two elevators, two lumberyards, two rooming houses in addition to a post office, telephone exchanges and a bank. Institutional development at this time included the creation of a board of trade with an initial membership of ten and the East Coulee Village School District No. 4396.

In 1930 the district constructed a four-room frame stucco building that opened in October with 115 pupils and a teaching staff of four. Between 1930 and 1939 the size of the district increased through the addition of land to the south of the Red Deer River. In 1949 a four-room addition was constructed which permitted the school to teach grades one to twelve. The continued strength of the coal mining industry ensured that the East Coulee School District would have a sufficient number of students to use the eight-room school.

The decline of the coal mining industry beginning in the mid 1950s led to the reorganization of the schools system. East Coulee's demise as an educational centre began on March 3, 1958. In 1965 the Drumheller Valley School District amalgamated with the Red Deer Valley School District to form the Drumheller Valley School District. This let to the complete centralization of all the schools in the valley and in 1969 all the hamlet schools were closed and the children bussed into the Drumheller system.

East Coulee School is therefore closely linked to the existence of East Coulee as a coal-mining town. It was one of the social institutions created as the development of the Drumheller coalfield moved west along the Red Deer Valley. Its demise was a direct result of the coal mining industry in the area.

Additional Information

Object Number: 4665-0616
Designation File: DES 1058
Related Listing(s):
Heritage Survey File: HS 15585
Website Link:
Data Source: Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, Historic Resources Management Branch, Old St. Stephen's College, 8820 - 112 Street, Edmonton, AB T6G 2P8 (File: Des. 1058)
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