BLACK HAWK HISTORY – PUBLIC SCHOOL
Prominently situated on the hillside overlooking the commercial downtown, the classically-detailed wood frame & clapboarded schoolhouse proclaimed education to be highly valued in the gold rush town of Black Hawk.
Black Hawk’s school system predated the formal incorporation of the town, having made use of a leased site from 1862-1870. The cost of the school house and land was nearly $15,000. Closed as a school in 1960, the school house became the home of the police department in the mid 1990s.
SCHOOLHOUSE OF THE WEST
“The public school at Black Hawk is a credit to the town. It is 40 feet x 60 feet high on the ground in two stories high. In it are four school rooms and a recitation room…The stairs leading from the street are a little abrupt but are the best that could be put in. The stairs within are broad and easy of ascent. The house is a credit to Black Hawk, and would be to any town in Colorado or the west. It will accommodate from two hundred to two hundred and fifty without inconvenience…The color of the outside is good and, indeed, the entire work. The furniture inside will be all of the best iron and hard wood make. Black Hawk, in the matter of a public school house, is ahead of every other place in Colorado, and has a teacher at the head of her schools who cannot be excelled.”
The local Gilpin County newspaper, The Register, December 1869