Last week, the Old Azusa Schoolhouse was moved from its old spot in Asuza, California, to a new location in a park just off Route 66 in the city.
The historic building was jacked up, placed on a flatbed truck trailer and moved last week to Veterans Freedom Park (map here) in an area the city will call Historic Row, reported the Whittier Daily News. Veterans Freedom Park is off Foothill Boulevard, also known as Historic Route 66.
Jeffrey Cornejo, city clerk and historian for the City of Azusa, gave the newspaper some background about the schoolhouse.
Believed to have opened in 1903, the schoolhouse initially was of mixed-race use, Cornejo said.
“When the school opened, it was all mixed and then around the teens, it started getting separated,” Cornejo said.
It eventually became totally segregated, with only those kindergarten students of Mexican descent attending.
“After World War II, it was like, “Enough of this. Why are we doing this?’” Cornejo said.
In 1947 the California state Legislature repealed all provisions in the education code that permitted school segregation, ending 100 years of school segregation in the state.
Here are photos from the City of Azusa when it moved the structure:
Here’s a video report by a CBS affiliate in the Los Angeles region before the schoolhouse was moved:
The city earlier this year purchased the schoolhouse from Azusa Unified School District with the help of a $3 million grant to move the structure.
Preservationists had fought for more than 15 years to save the schoolhouse after the school district stated it wanted to tear it down.
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