Creswell Heritage Foundation has raised $9,325 toward window restoration by offering window sponsorships to individuals, businesses and organizations. The sponsorships are $1,500 and will be recognized with a plaque. The Lions Club was the first to sponsor a window. Other full sponsors are Carol Campbell, Richard and Shirley Bonebrake, Don Ehrich in memory of his mother Jeanne Ehrich-Bradley, and the Winters family in memory of James Martin.
Volunteers who served in the old volunteer library will be recognized at another window. Contributors to that sponsorship are Judy Meredith, Mary Lou Campbell, Suzanne Peterson, Kenneth Parramore, Virginia Sherwood, Linda Stancil and Wanita Smith. Also, Len Campbell in memory of her mother Joan Campbell, and the Gleason family in memory of Vivian Gleason. These total $1,075. Further donations of any amount to this window are invited to complete the sponsorship. If you or a family member was a volunteer at the old library or want to honor those who were, consider this opportunity.
Another window is designated to recognize the Save the Schoolhouse Committee, which was active in 2009-11. It accomplished the listing of the building on the National Register of Historic Places and stabilized the building. The committee members were LaVae Robertson, Bill McCoy, Sharyn Viel, Marge Williamson and Carol Campbell. That window sponsorship is at $750, contributed by Carol Campbell and by Verlean McCoy in memory of Bill McCoy. Further contributions are invited to complete that sponsorship.
One window is still available for full $1,500 sponsorship by a business, organization, family or an individual. A permanent plaque will be mounted adjacent to the window to recognize the donor and/or honor their designee.
We thank all who have contributed to this project. Contributions can be mailed to Creswell Heritage Foundation, P.O. Box 1092, Creswell, OR 97426 or via PayPal at our website creswellheritagefoundation.org. Tell us who you wish to honor or your connection to the old library.
Contact [email protected].
LOCAL HISTORY: DEC. 16, 1926
The following 1926 Eugene Morning Register article was provided to Creswell Heritage Foundation by Virginia Sherwood, with thanks to Monica Knight of the Creswell Area Historical Society for help in researching the old schoolhouse.
CRESWELL WOMEN BUY OLD BAPTIST CHURCH
At Last Have Acquired Club and Community House
BUILDING IS LANDMARK
Baptists Bought It In ’98, Prior
To Which it Was Occupied
By Early High School
CRESWELL, OR., Dec. 16
The Ladies Civic Improvement Club of Creswell has negotiated the purchase of the Baptist church property for club and community purposes, the deal being closed this week. The club has been organized since 1913 and now has membership of 61, and has been most active all these years in social and civic improvement, meeting each month in the homes of the several members and enjoying a literary program. The last year Mrs. Clyde Wright has been president of the club and the committee who worked out the plan and secured the property were Mrs. W. W. Wyatt, chairman, and Mrs. John Martin, Mrs. M. A. Horn, Mrs. G. H. Davidson, Mrs. George Snere and Mrs. C. W. Dixon.
The building is one of the landmarks of Creswell and community, is located in the central part of town and has housed many public activities. It was first built in 1874 on the present schoolhouse site and was the first school building of the district. It was first a two story building, the first floor being occupied as a school and the second floor entertainment, such as Christmas tree celebrations, and at one time a Grange met there.
It was later moved to its present location where it was used by a local band organization for its practices and meetings, when Creswell supported a band of some fame.
It also housed the first high school in Lane County south of Eugene. In 1898 it was purchased by the Oregon Baptist Society and remodeled into a church, where services were held from time to time although it has been vacant for several years past. During the war it was used for local Red Cross service.
It is now a one story building, well built and in good condition and in the hands of the ladies will be renewed with paint and equipment and furniture that will make it an attractive meeting place for their social and civic functions.
Historical note: Research reveals the schoolhouse was built in 1875, not 1874.
There is no contemporaneous record of the remodeling done by the Baptist church. However, in A Short History of Creswell, by Mary Anne Ziniker Maloof, which appeared in the December 1964 Lane County Historian, it states: “They took off the second story, put a steeple on the east and had themselves a church.”
