Looking back at Pea Ridge School in 1965
“The Little White Building” was assembled from materials from old Camp Crowder in 1948.
The Heritage Building is a block building, constructed sometime in the 1920s as a vocational agriculture classroom and shop. In 1941, it was repurposed to become Pea Ridge School’s hot lunch room. A kitchen was added on at that time on the north side of the original building. The building served as the school’s cafeteria until 1964, when the new elementary school building was constructed.
The building that was assembled from materials obtained from the old World War I Army Air Corp base at Camp Crowder, Neosho, Mo., was what local historians have called “The Little White Building.” The little white building was a wood frame classroom building, located just off the northeast corner of the main school building. It originally housed the third and fourth grades, beginning in 1948. It would later be used for various other classes, and possibley at one time was the Home Economics classroom, according to Jerry Nichols, vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society.
An aerial photo of the school buildings and school grounds as they were in about 1965, looking in a northwest direction, shows, in the upper left, the old 1930s gymnasium, where students in the 1950s played basketball. It’s location is now the parking lot for the Heritage Building.
In the center, partially obscured by the northwest wing of the school building, is the Heritage Building.
Further to the right is the school shop which was constructed in the early 1950s. To the right, just off the northeast wing of the school building, is the little white building assembled from materials from Camp Crowder.
Today’s Intermediate School building would be just out of the picture to the right. Behind the little white building at the right edge of the picture can be seen baseball fields, where the new old gym was constructed, possibly in the 1970s, according to Nichols.