{"nrhp_refnum":"90000144","name":"West Schoolhouse","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"141 Shawsheen Ave. at Aldrich Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Wilmington","county":"Middlesex County","state":"MA","lat":42.55625497200003,"lon":-71.18984739699994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-02-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story, gable-roofed wood-frame district schoolhouse with a rear ell, built in 1875 on the north side of Shawsheen Avenue, opposite Aldrich Road, in Wilmington, Massachusetts.","why_significant":"It is one of Wilmington's earliest surviving schoolhouses and one of three survivors of the town's 19th-century district school system, with the Old Centre and South Schoolhouses. It is a well-preserved example of a small rural frame schoolhouse of the late 19th century. Notable features include the gabled facade with two entries, cornice returns, a broad frieze and rope molding on the cornerboards.","narrative":"West Schoolhouse is a small one-story wooden school on Shawsheen Avenue in Wilmington, Massachusetts, built in 1875 after the town paid for land and for lumber and labor to replace an older school across the road. It has a gabled front with two entries, clapboard siding, cornice returns, a broad frieze and decorative rope molding on the cornerboards. A lower ell extends from the rear. The building served one of Wilmington's school districts and was closed and reopened several times as the town debated replacing district schools with a centralized system. It reopened in the 1920s and was still teaching grades 1 and 2 in 1938, remaining a school into the 1940s. Later uses included State Police, a high school audio-visual department and storage. It is one of only three surviving district schoolhouses in town, and is valued as a well-preserved example of a late 19th-century rural frame school. Its windows are now boarded over, and a 1987 fire damaged part of the rear ell.","period_of_significance":"1875-1938","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Victorian; No Style","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Listed as vacant/not in use; the text says it is currently used for storage, with windows boarded over and fire damage from a 1987 blaze near the west ell entry.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.271875-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/91/7958/63795891/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/90000144.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000144/97559fb148-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000144/97559fb148-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"User:Magicpiano","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WilmingtonMA_WestSchoolhouse.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">User:Magicpiano</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WilmingtonMA_WestSchoolhouse.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63795891","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Schoolhouse_(Wilmington,_Massachusetts)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7986442"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/middlesex-county/west-schoolhouse-90000144/"}