Construction Stalls on Walla Walla’s Grand New High School
A shortage of skilled bricklayers and delayed materials push the completion date of the city's premier educational facility into late autumn.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Construction work on Walla Walla's new high school building has reached a stage where the work of putting on the roof has commenced. This once on, the interior work will be rapidly finished. Through several unfortunate causes the new building will not be ready to turn over to the board of education before November 1, if then. The non-arrival of material at the start delayed matters considerably and now Contractor Parks is unable to obtain brick layers, though he has made an effort to get men from outside points. At Portland every brick layer is at work and at other points the same condition prevails. Though the work is going ahead exasperatingly slow, both to the contractor and the board of education, when finished the new structure will be the finest school building in design and material in the city if not in eastern Washington. The best of material is being used throughout and only first class workmen have been employed on the work. Unlike the public school buildings of the city, the partitions are constructed wholly of brick, wood only being used where absolutely necessary in closets, etc.
“At Portland every brick layer is at work and at other points the same condition prevails.”
Building delays driven by labor shortages were as much a part of the construction landscape in 1903 as they are today. While modern Walla Walla faces different supply chain and labor pressures, the anxiety over completing a 'finest in the city' public project remains a familiar civic narrative.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.