WPA workers raised Will Rogers High School at 3909 E. 5th Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1939. Built by Tulsa Public Schools in 1939 with WPA workers, this building was designed by Joseph R. Koberling, Jr. and Leon B. Senter and carries the name of the humorist Will Rogers, who died in 1935 with Wiley Post in a plane crash. The campus you see was expanded with significant additions in 1949 and again in 1964; those alterations were made to keep faith with the original design and did not detract from the school’s architectural or historical significance.
Critics have called it “one of the best examples of Art Deco high school architecture in the United States,” and you can feel that confidence in its proportions and detailing. Remember that this school rose from a city shaped by an oil-driven population boom through the 1910s and 1920s, a time when Tulsa had already built Central, Booker T. Washington, and Clinton high schools by 1920 and the Board was planning two more. As of 2008 the school served roughly 1,000 students and has more than 39,000 alumni.
Picture the wings added in 1949 and 1964 still carrying the same Art Deco confidence as the 1939 original.