The following history of the Washington School building is from the website of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, the current occupants of the building.

....one of six square school houses built at the turn of the century in Eureka and the only one to have escaped the wrecker's ball. The building is a basic rectangular mass built in the classic school building vernacular with Colonial Revival detailing.

The building has been used continually since it opened as a grammar school in 1902. After its life as a school building until 1938, it was used as a barracks during WWII, housed the Coast Guard, Red Cross and served as a courthouse, was a warehouse for the Eureka School District and finally, from 1984 to the present, has been a community senior center. Some of the seniors who attend our programs attended school here as children.