The Casa Blanca neighborhood of Riverside grew on either side of Madison Street, south of Indiana Avenue, populated by families who worked in nearby citrus packing houses or as migrant agricultural labor.
These families were originally almost all immigrants, primarily from Mexico. Today, Casa Blanca continues to be home primarily to people of Latino heritage.
The first mention of constructing a Casa Blanca School in Riverside was in 1906.
A school bond election in what was then the Palm School District was to be held to raise $3,000 to build the school. The bond must have failed as nothing more was mentioned about it in local newspapers. In 1907, the four school districts in the city merged and Casa Blanca came under the new, larger Riverside City School District.
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A second-grade class photo from the Casa Blanca School in Riverside shows students in the late 1940s or early 1950s. (File photo by Carrie Rosema, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
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A second-grade class photo from the Casa Blanca School in Riverside shows students in the late 1940s or early 1950s. (File photo by Carrie Rosema, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
In 1914, another bond issue was proposed that included money for a school in Casa Blanca.
This time, voters passed the bond and plans were made to build a three-room school with two regular rooms and one large kindergarten room. A lot was bought on Madison for the new school and a construction contract was awarded to Cresmer Manufacturing Co. in June 1914. Construction commenced Monday, July 27. While the building wasn’t completed for the start of school, it was ready to be occupied in mid-October. Miss Eliza Timmey was the principal.
In 1917, plans were made to improve the Casa Blanca School grounds with lawns, flowers and trees as well as playground equipment. According to the Daily Press, the equipment was to be “the finest obtainable” with seesaws, swings, slides, etc.
In 1918, when the Spanish influenza pandemic hit Riverside, the school was temporarily turned into a hospital for influenza cases and soon had 33 patients. It was in place to serve the Latino population of Riverside from Oct. 11 to Nov. 18. After that, school resumed in the building.
In spring 1919, a new 24 x 36 building was erected at the school, because of the growing student population. It was constructed by high school boys directed by their shop teacher to give them carpentry experience. In January 1921, with Casa Blanca School enrollment continuing to grow, another two-room building was started, also to be built by the high school boys. The school, which started with 27 pupils in 1914, had 285 by 1922 — the biggest increase of any school in Riverside.
On the night of July 5, 1923, the school burned to the ground. However, the school board acted quickly and, 11 days later, approved building plans by G. Stanley Wilson to build a new reinforced concrete five-room school. The board accepted Cresmer’s bid for $22,000 on July 26. The new school was ready about three weeks after school began. Until then, classes were held in leased rooms.
In addition to the new building, fall 1923 brought another big change for Casa Blanca School.
Timmey, the school’s only principal for its first nine years, resigned and was replaced by Mabra Madden, who remained as principal until 1964.
In 1927, another four classrooms and an auditorium were built. In the early 1930s, lights were installed at the school so the community baseball team could play night games on its field. The school population continued to grow and, by 1933, the school had a principal and 11 teachers. According to Madden, in a 1963 Press-Enterprise article announcing his retirement, the school at times held classes in the local church, a pool hall and a home to accommodate all the students.
Casa Blanca School continued to change and adapt.
In a 1940 article in the Riverside Daily Press, Madden stated that 50% of the students were second-generation Casa Blanca residents whose parents had attended the school. This was a change from the early years, when almost all students and their parents were foreign born.
December 1941 brought World War II to the United States. Casa Blanca students did their part to help the war effort. In June 1943, Madden announced the school would receive the Minute Man Flag for outstanding efforts in the purchase of War Savings Stamps. More than 90% of the student body had regularly purchased the stamps. Madden also announced that the school’s 450 students had gathered more than 25 tons of scrap metal.
The 1940s saw another significant milestone in Riverside.
Hazel Russell became the district’s first Black teacher when she was hired at Casa Blanca School in 1947. She taught there for more than a decade before moving on to other teaching endeavors.
In the 1950s, the post WWII baby boom hit Riverside and the school district planned a significant bond issue. Casa Blanca would have new facilities as part of the massive building plan. Voters approved the bond and in November 1954 the school board approved plans for three regular classrooms and a classroom for special education pupils.
Voters approved another bond issue in 1960 that led to Casa Blanca School receiving a four-classroom building. The school board also included an automatic fire alarm system as part of the improvements, as Casa Blanca was one of two district schools still using the old manual alarm system.
In October 1962, The Press-Enterprise ran a series of seven articles on racial discrimination and segregation in Riverside. The third, on Oct. 16, addressed segregation in the schools. Written by Tom Patterson, then the education writer, the article noted that junior high and high schools were never segregated, however segregated lives of the students may have been outside of school.
The elementary schools were another story.
After the consolidation of several one-building school districts into a larger Riverside school district in 1907, segregation became possible. In 1962, three schools — Lowell, Casa Blanca and Irving — were predominantly minority schools, with White students allowed to attend other schools even if they lived within the boundaries of one of those three campuses. However fluid the boundaries may have been over the years in other areas of Riverside, with some schools going from having a mixed student body to being majority segregated, history shows Casa Blanca always had a segregated school.
Then, in 1965, parents and residents — primarily from the city’s Eastside — came together to end segregation in Riverside elementary schools. The people in Casa Blanca had opinions of their own, of course, but they were not the primary movers and drivers of that battle. Many residents enjoyed having a local school that was the center of community life.
The Riverside School District, working with surprising speed, responded to the segregation outcry by creating a desegregation plan in coordination with Black and Hispanic residents. Their plan promised the closing of the three racially segregated schools in Riverside — including Casa Blanca School — and busing those children to other schools in the district. The plan included total desegregation by 1967. This made Riverside the first city of its size in the U.S. to voluntarily and totally desegregate its schools.
Reporting over the years indicates that many Casa Blanca residents did not favor the closing of their school and the loss of its place at the center of community life. But the desegregation plan moved forward and Casa Blanca School closed its doors in June 1967 — 50 years after it began to serve the Casa Blanca community.
If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at backinthedaype@gmail.com.
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