Conifer Junction Schoolhouse Conifer, Colorado

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

Conifer Junction Schoolhouse is locally significant under Criterion A for Education as a one-room schoolhouse in rural Colorado in continuous use from 1923 to 2012, though was two rooms from 1980 on, after a partition wall was installed. This wall has since been removed. The period of significance begins in 1923 when the school opened and ends in 1965 at the time the school was converted into a preschool. It is also locally significant under Criterion A for Social History as a central meeting place for the rural community of Conifer, used for many social events including dances and box socials. The period of significance begins with the school opening in 1923 and ends when West Jefferson Elementary School opened and Conifer Junction was no longer a central meeting place for the community in 1955. The schoolhouse is also locally significant under Criterion C for Architecture as an excellent example of oneroom rural schoolhouse architecture. The period of significance runs from 1923 for the construction of the schoolhouse until the 1930s to include the construction of the barn. Finally, it is significant under Criterion D for Non-Aboriginal Historic Archaeology for its potential to yield information important to history due to buried deposits. Two privies are attached to the barn, though have separate entrances from the barn, one for boys and one for girls. The privy pits have been covered and the doors secured after the school district installed indoor plumbing likely in the mid-1950s. The period of significance for non-aboriginal historic archaeology extends from circa 1930s to 1950s.