This is the foundation of one of the 2 rooms in the 2-room schoolhouse at Alpine, Washington. The school was built originally as a 1-room school and the 2nd room was added some time later with a connecting hallway. At this location we found parts of electric light fixtures, shards of a pitcher, slate, and metal fixtures. The construction of this portion of the school is different from the construction of every other building that we have located so far in Alpine. All of the other buildings had stone or concrete foundations and undoubtedly had wood joists and floors. This part of the school has a concrete foundation and a concrete floor above the foundation instead of wood joists and floors - surprising when you consider that Alpine was a lumber mill town. Jacki is crouched on the concrete floor of the school, and Jenna is standing. You may see from the depth of their shoes that the floor is only a few inches below the highest point of the foundation. I suppose that it is possible that the concrete construction was to protect against fire in the schoolhouse, which was a great danger in the age of wood construction. As late as 1958, when I was in 7th grade, there was a school fire in Chicago that took 95 lives. Photo taken by Jackie Cuddy May 14, 2009.