Ward School (Ward, Colorado)

The Ward School, at 66 Columbia St. in Ward, Colorado, is a historic school building later used as the town hall, public library, and post office of Ward Township, and also has been known as Ward Townhall and Post Office. It was built in 1898 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "Ward School" in 1989. It had "one of the most unusual civic uses" of schools in Colorado", having been draped with wet blankets and serving as a fire break line protecting houses above it during Ward's fire of 1900 which consumed the lower part of the town. The first school in Ward was built in 1863. This school is a "substantial" one-story building, and was one of the larger schoolhouses in western Boulder County in its era. It was built after mining had declined, in the same year as the arrival of the railroad in Ward. "The Ward School has been an important symbol of the community throughout its history. Its original construction was an expression of hope for the prosperity of the community in the coming years of the 20th century and it represented the aspirations that the residents had for Ward's future." It is one of Ward's oldest buildings, having survived the fire in 1900 which destroyed 53 buildings in Ward and otherwise having outlived the other survivors. It was listed on the National Register as a resource identified in a study, the "Metal Mining and Tourist Era Reso

School data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).