This history of Maple Elementary School is taken from the second edition of Building for Learning: Seattle Public School Histories, which includes histories of every school building used by the district since its formation around 1862. The original essay was written for the 2002 first edition by Nile Thompson and Carolyn J. Marr, and updated for the 2024 edition by HistoryLink contributor Rita Cipalla.
Jacob Mapel and Family
On June 21, 1851, Jacob Mapel, his son Samuel, and a man named Thompson arrived at Pigeon Point in Youngstown. There they met Luther M. Collins, said to be the first white settler in what became King County. Collins showed them a site on the Duwamish River, where they planted potatoes. They headed south to get the stock they left behind and returned in September to file their claims. Another of Jacob Mapel’s sons, John Wesley, arrived in 1862. That year, the first classes for the children of these settlers were held in a small shed on Henry Van Asselt’s farm. The school was known as the Duwamish School.
In 1865, a school was built on land donated by Samuel Mapel, who specified the land was to be used “for school purposes only.” Located just 200 feet from the Duwamish River, it too was sometimes referred to as the Duwamish School. This one-room schoolhouse measured about 25 feet by 55 feet and was made of hand-sawed lumber with a roof of cedar shake. It was unfinished on the outside but brightly painted inside.
The first teacher at the second Duwamish School was John Wesley Maple, who had changed the spelling of his last name. His students numbered 20. The school term lasted three months in the fall and three months in the spring. Maple later lamented, “I was often sorry I had undertaken it as it was about the hardest work that I ever had undertaken to do in my life.” Isaac P. Rich, who taught at Maple School in the 1880s, described his typical day: Go to school early, chop wood and start the fire, bring in water, and then proceed to teach all grades of students, for which he received $40 a month.
In 1900, the one-room school was replaced by an elegant two-story frame structure located just to the south, on land purchased by Columbia School District No. 18. The 1865 building stood for many years and was used not only for school but for religious services, political meetings, socials, and other community gatherings. The new two-story structure was modeled after a school in Everett. A broad stairway led up to the front door, and an elaborate bell tower topped the building. It was sometimes referred to as the Van Asselt School because a small railroad station a few blocks away was named for Henry Van Asselt, who had given the railroad a right-of-way. John Wesley Maple was one of the directors of the new school. The naming of the school has been attributed to various members of the Maple family.
Short Life Span
Unfortunately, the second Maple School was situated on a right-of-way eyed by the Oregon and Washington Railway and was torn down in 1907-1908. A new Maple School was built, this time on Roosevelt Hill in Georgetown, where the population was growing. The new building contained four classrooms, two on the main floor and two upstairs. However, it was vacant for almost a year, first because the contractor couldn’t get plumbing supplies ordered from Pennsylvania, and then because the water supply on the hill was discovered to be unsafe. On July 1, 1910, Maple School District No. 2 joined Seattle School District No. 1. By this time, the school had five grades with 179 students and four teachers.
During the 1910-1911 school year, Maple operated as an annex to Georgetown School. From 1911-1913, it was an annex to South Seattle School. A “Liberty Building” was added as Maple School Annex in 1918. In 1926, Maple School and its annex were moved two blocks south to 17th Avenue S and Lucile Street to make room for construction of Cleveland High School. At this time, Maple’s frame building and annex were remodeled. Two play courts and a lunchroom portable were added. In 1957, Maple School had 591 pupils and 16 teachers. Six portables accommodated the overflowing student body.
For a decade beginning in 1972, the original 1909 Maple School building was home to Alternative School #1 (AS #1). It served more than 100 students, first in K-9 and then K-8 and was the only south-end alternative program. AS #1 was described as “the district’s first attempt to create an ‘alternative’ for parents who were opposed to what they saw as the rigidity of school programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s.” During the 1981-1982 year, more than 90 percent of the AS #1 parents responding to a questionnaire rated the program as “excellent” in meeting their children’s social/emotional needs. In 1982, the program moved to Gatzert and the 1909 building was demolished.
A Fourth Maple School
Meanwhile, the fourth and current Maple School opened in 1971 at a new site on Corson Avenue S as an elementary school. In drastic contrast to the venerable frame building, the new structure was designed as an open-concept school to facilitate groups and individualized instruction. Children from the closed Georgetown School were incorporated into the student body when the new school opened. Maple became one of the district’s “World Culture” centers in the early 1990s with a focus on Latin America. An arts program brought dance classes for the younger grades in 1993. The building housed a Bilingual Orientation Center, and more than 30 percent of the students were in the English as a Second Language program.
In 2004, work began on a school addition. Until then, students had been using a sprawling, single-story main building and detached gym constructed some 30 years earlier. The new plan was to replace existing portables with a six-classroom, one-story addition. The addition, designed by BCRA Tsang, was a stand-alone facility, which allowed maximum daylight and view potential. A covered breezeway was incorporated so the children could comfortably walk between the buildings regardless of the weather. The 16,200-square-foot addition included a new gymnasium/cafeteria (“cafetorium”) with a stage, kitchen, and dedicated childcare facility. Capping 10 years of continuous academic improvements, Maple was the only Seattle public school recognized in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education as a No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. At the time, teachers pointed to the school’s open-concept plan as a key to its success. Open-concept schools are built with few walls, so students learn to concentrate and screen out distrac- tions, and disruptive behavior is hard to hide.
In 2017, Maple was selected to be part of a pilot program funded by an OSPI grant to promote the use of a structural system known as cross-laminated timber (CLT). CLT uses 2-inch by 6-inch planks of wood, layers them, and glues them together. The panels are pre-designed and pre-cut, meaning classrooms are easier and faster to install and create a sustainable learning environment for students. As a result, a four-classroom CLT modular building was constructed and opened in the fall of 2017.
History
Duwamish School a.k.a. Maple School
Location: Present site of Boeing Field
Administrative Building
Building: Frame
1865: Opened as a county school
1900: Closed
Maple School, a.k.a. Van Asselt School
Location: Just south of first Maple School
Building: Frame
Architect: n.a.
Site: n.a.
1900: Opened by Columbia School District
1907: Annexed into Seattle School District
1908: Closed in June; demolished
Maple School
Location: 5320 17th Avenue S
Building: 4-room, 2-story frame
Architect: n.a.
Site: 1.77 acres
1909: Opened
1910: Became part of Seattle School District
1926: Relocated at 17th S and Lucile Street
1960: Closed in January
1972: Opened as alternative school site
1982: Closed in June; demolished in September
Maple School Annex
Location: 5320 17th Avenue S
Building: 4-room frame "Liberty Building"
Architect: n.a.
1918: Opened in September
1926: Relocated at 17th Avenue S and Lucile Street
ca. 1963-64: Demolished
Maple Elementary School
Location: 4925 Corson Avenue S
Building: 1-story brick
Architect: Durham, Anderson
& Freed Co.
Site: 6.1 acres
1971: Opened
2007: Addition of six classrooms, cafeteria, and auditorium (BCRA Tsang)
2017: Four-classroom addition (Mahlum Architects)
Maple Elementary in 2023
Enrollment: 491
Address: 4925 Corson Avenue S
Nickname: Monarchs
Configuration: K-5
Colors: Red and white
