This school, a replacement for a building destroyed in the 1936 tornado, is an example of “conservative modern,” as its principal designer, A. Hays Town, termed it, being massive and largely unornamented and to some extent streamlined. The school’s poured-in-place concrete construction appealed to a local school board responding to the recent weather catastrophe, and at the pylon-like front entrance the architects took advantage of the material’s casting capabilities to produce setbacks and cants, reeded jambs astride the double doors, and bas-relief murals celebrating the period of local settlement. A few blocks away, at 720 W. Jefferson Street, Overstreet and Town also designed the brick high school (1936–1937; now Milam Elementary School), which has a long flat-roofed classroom wing displaying an industrial aesthetic and Moderne features at the prominent entrances.
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CHURCH STREET SCHOOL (NORTH CHURCH PRIMARY SCHOOL)
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