urban beauty Tulsa County, Oklahoma Listed: 09/06/2007 Built during the Great Depression through funding from a Public Works Administration grant, Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, now stands as one of the best examples of Art Deco high school architecture in the United States. The elaborate Art Deco building was designed to instill pride, not only in the school itself by its design, function and beauty, but by its reference to an important native son, Will Rogers. Rogers\' images, set in backgrounds of Oklahoma countryside and Tulsa\'s downtown, brought together local, state and national points of pride. Progressive educational values, which evolved from the rapid urbanization of the nation from the 1880s to the 1930s, were the nation\'s first attempt to transform common schools into ones that met the needs of a highly diverse and increasingly urban student population. These new educational objectives, which moved from traditional teacher-centered and content-driven education to progressive or learner-centered and process-driven education, created new school plant designs, including Will Rogers High School. Once completed, the school was nationally recognized for integrating progressive education\'s goals into a high school building, Will Rogers High School was featured as an ideal school in a major educational study, and promoted as a model school in Time and Life Magazines. While the exterior of Will Rogers High School is significant architecturally, the interior is also finished in the main public spaces with fine Art Deco details. The entries in the towers are elaborate constructions of Chinese mandarin red terra cotta, brass grills and highly detailed fans and floral trim at the wall/ceiling junction. The balconied auditorium is striking in its degree of detail, with curved and fluted gold insets of a fan and floral designs in terra cotta red, brass, gold leaf and tan. Every element in the library was designed, from the walnut-stained bookcases lined in Chinese Mandarin red, to the elaborate doorways and trim. Even wall colors were specifically chosen. The classrooms were painted in pastels, color-keyed to learning and to produce moods correlating to the subject. Stimulating colors were employed for mathematics and science, and quiet colors used for the library. Will Rogers High school is notable in its integrity and condition. It has been in continuous use since its construction and has had two major alterations - a 1949 addition to the east classroom wing, and a 1964 one-story gym and extension to the west classroom wing. The additions to the building are distinguishable from the original building, and the 1949 addition has gained its own historic integrity. Will Rogers High School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, as an outstanding example of Art Deco school architecture and as a model of progressive education in the United States. \"It isn\'t what we don\'t know that gives us trouble, it\'s what we know that ain\'t so.\" - Will Rogers. .nps.gov/history/nr\" National Register of Historic Places Read more in our .nps.gov/history/nr/feature/school/2011/Will_Rogers_High_School.htm\" Back to School Feature.
