NRHP Reference # 02001693 Designated NMSRCP February 1, 2002 Area 8,000 m² Nearest city Seneca, New Mexico | NMSRCP # 1806 Opened 1936 Added to NRHP 8 January 2003 | |
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Location State Road 456, approximately 4 miles west of its junction with State Road 406 MPS New Deal in New Mexico MPS Built by Works Progress Administration | ||
The Goodson Memorial School, in Union County, New Mexico near Seneca was built in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration. It has also been known as the Goodson School. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003; the listing included one contributing building, three other contributing structures, and one contributing site.
It was deemed significant as one of few surviving WPA school buildings in northeast New Mexico. The school was a four-room building built at cost of $6,000 which provided construction jobs, and which achieved consolidation of three former rural schools in the Dry Cimarron Valley. It was rural itself and at one point served 50 to 60 students in grades 1-10. It served until the 1960s when busing students to a larger school in Clayton became feasible. It was named for Felix Emmett Goodson, the county commissioner who achieved construction of the school, who was also a rancher; he managed Roberts Ranch, located just to the northeast of the school site; his wife Stella Goodson was a teacher at one of the schools consolidated. The school became a local community center; the community came to be called Goodson; the school was last used for voting in 1962 and has since been empty.