[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 26 (Wednesday, March 3, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    WARM SPRINGS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CELEBRATES 150 YEARS OF EDUCATION

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                            HON. JERRY LEWIS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 3, 2004

  Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Speaker, I would like today to recognize 
Warm Springs Elementary School, the first permanent school in San 
Bernardino, California, which is celebrating its 150th year of 
providing education to the children of ranchers, railroad workers, Air 
Force personnel and immigrants.
  In 1854, ranchers near the small Mormon town of San Bernardino 
decided seven miles was too far for their children to walk to school. 
They got together and built an adobe east of downtown, and named it 
after the nearby Warm Creek. As a one-room school, it provided an 
education for about 25 children of all ages. This was just four years 
after California gained statehood, and the same year as the City of San 
Bernardino was incorporated as the county seat.
  Over the next 10 years, the school grew slowly as many of the Mormon 
settlers returned to Utah. Gold was discovered in the San Bernardino 
Mountains--bringing thousands of fortune-seekers but few families. The 
school building was nearly destroyed by an earthquake and a flood, so 
the adobe was replaced with a log cabin on the same site facing 
Sterling Avenue. The students were grouped by reading ability rather 
than age, and boys and girls sat on opposite sides of the room.
  The log-cabin school was destroyed by fire in 1974, and a clapboard 
building replaced it--with an auditorium added in 1887. That school 
also later burned to the ground and was replaced.
  By the 1890s, the railroads had come to San Bernardino and the area 
was booming. The Santa Fe Railway built a huge repair yard near 
downtown, and the population grew rapidly. In 1898, Warm Creek School 
grew to four rooms and had as many as 100 students. That school was 
torn down in 1926 and replaced with a Spanish-style tile-roofed 
building that remains the school's core.
  Students at Warm Springs School became close witnesses to America's 
war efforts in the 1940s. The San Bernardino Municipal Airport, just 
seven blocks south, became the San Bernardino Army Airfield, repairing 
and servicing hundreds of transport planes moving troops around the 
country. The airfield became Norton Air Force Base in 1950, and for the 
next 38 years was one of the most active Air Force fields in the West. 
Children of the base's civilian repair workers swelled the ranks of 
students at the school, which added nine classrooms in 1945 and two 
more in 1947.
  By 1954, the city of San Bernardino had grown far beyond the former 
outpost school, and it was absorbed into the city's unified school 
district, becoming Warm Springs Elementary School. It continued to grow 
to 32 classrooms, and today 45 teachers serve 1,000 students in year-
round classes, making it one of the largest elementary schools in the 
district. The student population today is nearly 60 percent Latino, 
many of them the children of recent immigrants.
  Mr. Speaker, Warm Springs Elementary has provided a free education--
the foundation of our American success--to thousands of children over 
the past 150 years. I would be proud to be associated with this school 
for that fact alone, but I have a special reason to be fond of Warm 
Springs. It is the alma mater of the Walker girls of San Bernardino--
Mary, Darlene, and her twin sister Arlene, who happens to be my bride. 
Arlene and I will be returning to her old school on March 9 to 
celebrate the sesquicentennial, and encourage the current students to 
take advantage of the opportunities their education can provide.
  I have always believed, Mr. Speaker, that our education system is a 
success because of local schools run by wonderful teachers, supported 
by great principals. Warm Springs Elementary continues the tradition of 
excellence under Principal Arlan Anderson that it has carried on for 
the past 150 years. Please join me in congratulating those educators on 
their continued dedication, and wish their current students well for 
the future.

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