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Ketchikan's historic Clover Pass School has been named to the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places.
The nearly 50-year-old one-room school house on Potter Road in the Knudson Cove area was tentatively named to the national register late this summer but the official notification was just made the first week in October, according to Historic Ketchikan Executive Director Dave Kiffer.
Historic Ketchikan has owned the school building since it received title from the Pond Reef Volunteer Department in February of 2004. The two acre parcel of land under the building is owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Historic Ketchikan is currently working with the BLM on a long-term management lease for the property.
"The BLM is extremely supportive our efforts to preserve and rehabilitate this property," Kiffer said. "BLM officials in Anchorage processed the national register nomination and also shepherded it through the National Park Service process."
Kiffer said the school becomes the 15th national register property in the Ketchikan. "It was determined in the 1980s that Ketchikan had the highest number of historic properties per capita in the state," Kiffer said. "With the rapid change in the community in the last 10 years it is crucial that we recognize the importance of Ketchikan's past in ensuring our future."
The school was built by Clover Pass community members in 1947, Kiffer said. "In those days it was easier to build a school than to transport the children into Ketchikan and back every day," he said. "The school is the physical embodiment of Ketchikan's can-do attitude. The homesteaders in the area knew they had to go the extra mile to ensure their children's education."
Kiffer said that after the school building was vacated in the early 1960s, it was used as a polling station, a community center and a library. He said that it can continue to be used for a variety of uses. "The Knudsen Cove area is popular with developers right now," Kiffer said. "Several nearby properties have changed hands in the last couple of years. That makes it even more crucial to save this property for the use of the community as a whole."
When the land lease or a memorandum of understanding is signed, Historic Ketchikan will seek grant money to repair the foundation of the building and make improvements to inside. The organization hopes to rent out the facility in order to pay for its upkeep.
For more information, please contact Historic Ketchikan at 225-5515 or at the e-mail address listed below.
Historic Preservation and Economic Development Go Hand in Hand