Hawthorne School (Hawthorne Community Center)
The Hawthorne school is both historically and architecturally significant because it represents the early suburbanization of Butte. Near the turn-of-the century, the Tidewater Investment Company and its founder, Wallace White, began developing the Lake Avoca region south of Butte into an exclusive suburb. The extension of the streetcar line to the area after 1908-1909 and the relocation of the Butte Country Club to the lake front in 1909 increased the desirability to live in the suburbs. White placed restrictions on deeds, mandated the cost of residences, and established a tree nursery for the area. People soon began building homes in the subdivision known as Atherton Place-on-the-Lakes.
In 1914, realizing how popular the area was becoming and the need for a school, White deeded 2.87 acres of land in Atherton to the Butte School District. In 1917, the population of the area was large enough to warrant the construction of a new school, replacing a small wood-frame building housing just two teachers. The new building contained six classrooms arranged in a U-shape with the gymnasium located in the center of the U. Students occupied the new building in September 1917.
The Hawthorne School, as it was named, was an exact duplicate of the Longfellow School (closed in 2001 and eventually demolished). Two rear extensions were added to Hawthorne in 1958. Unlike the Longfellow where the additions were built at right angles to the main structure, the Hawthorne’s extensions radiate out from the central gymnasium giving the school a V shape.
Hawthorne closed in 1975 and now houses a dance school and a daycare.
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