Ornament pays tribute to former Carson City school

This year’s city ornament — the 13th in an annual series depicting historic buildings — pays homage to Carson City’s Central School, which is no longer standing but once housed all the grades in the school district.

The story in Thursday’s Nevada Appeal confused it with Bordewich-Bray Elementary School, which was built next to the Central School in 1937 as the city’s high school.

The Central School filled the block, from King to Musser streets and from Division to Minnesota streets. It opened in 1906. High-schoolers left that building in 1937, but it continued to be used for elementary school, up through the eighth grade, until the late 1950s.

Kirk Kinne remembers attending third through seventh grades in the building in the mid-1950s, the lower grades on the east side of the complex and the upper grades on the west.

“They used to block off Division Street and that was our playground,” he said. “They did the same thing on Minnesota. Carson was a very small place at the time.”

Rosanna DeBusk graduated from the eighth grade in 1952, receiving all of her schooling there, where her mother also graduated from high school.

She said a fire in 1921 destroyed the school’s fourth floor and bell tower, remnants of which could still be seen when she was there.

“When I went to school you could still see the burned timbers in the basement,” she said.

The building was sold to the Methodist Church in 1960, but stood mostly vacant for a decade — although Barbara Longero’s son remembers attending Cub Scouts there and Rev. Clyde Teel established the Kiwanis Thrift Shop in the basement — until it was demolished in the early 1970s.

In 2002, the Downtown Redevelopment Citizens Committee decided to highlight unique Carson City buildings, which has had historic and architectural character, and each year, a limited number of ornaments is ordered.

This year’s ornament can be purchased at the Purple Avocado, 904 N. Curry St.; Legislative Counsel Bureau Gift Shop, 401 S. Carson St.; Nevada State Museum Gift Shop, 600 N. Carson St.; and the Carson City Visitors Bureau Gift Shop, 716 N. Carson St.

Past years’ ornaments have been the Laxalt Building, Nevada State Mint, St. Peter’s Church, Bliss Mansion, Capitol, St. Teresa of Avila Church, Governor’s Mansion, St. Charles Hotel, V&T Depot, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church and the Civic Auditorium, now the Children’s Museum of Northern Nevada. They are available through the city’s Office of Business Development as well as the Purple Avocado.