UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 825 



Contribution from the Bureau of Markets 

 GEORGE LIVINGSTON, Acting Chief 





Washington, D. C. 



January 30, 1920 



RURAL COMMUNITY BUILDINGS IN THE UNITED 



STATES/ 



By W. C. Nason, Assistant in Rural Organization, and C. W. Thompson, Specialist 



in Rural Organization. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Growing interest in community buildings ... 1 

 Community buildings classified according to 



source of funds for theif establishment 2 



General character of the building 4 



Maintenance 5 



Operation and management 5 



Uses to which buildings are put 5 



Specific examples of community buildings: 6 



The commimity house, Holden, Mass 6 



The Matinecock neighborhood house, 



Locust Valley, L.I 11 



Community building, Elgin, Nebr 16 



Specific examples of community buildings — 

 Continued. 

 Red River farmers' club hall, Kittson 



County, Minn 20 



Tamalpais Center building, Kentfield, 



Calif 22 



Amusement hall, Ware Shoals, S. C 25 



Dixon township building, Argonia, Kans. 28 

 Rembrandt community building, Wood- 

 stock, Term 30 



• List of commimity buildings selected 

 from those visited or studied through 

 correspondence 34 



GROWING INTEREST IN COMMUNITY BUILDINGS. 



Throughout the country there is a keen and widespread interest 

 in community buildings, their activities, their accomplished results, 

 and their possibilities. Their development is so recent and they are 

 so essentially an outgrowth of rural life and conditions that knowledge 

 regardmg them necessarily has been fragmentary, in most cases 

 limited to impressions gained from observation of a few isolated houses. 

 The construction and acquisition of special buildings to serve as 

 community centers is such an important result of social organizations 

 in the rural sections and smaller towns of the United States that a 

 comprehensive study of a number of representative buddings was 

 deemed desirable by the Department of Agriculture. Accordingly 

 a study has been made of 256 such buildings. Most of them are 

 relatively new, 248 having been built since 1900, 201 since 1910, and 

 90 since 1915. The accompanying diagram (fig. 1), based on the date 

 of construction reported for the buildings studied, shows the increase 

 in the number of community buildings from 1900 to 19 IS. The 



1 On July 1, 1919, the study of rural social organization, including rural community buildings, was 

 transferred to the Office of Farm Management, and Mr. Thompson assumed charge of the Division of 

 Cooperative Marketing. 



141649°— 19— Bull. 825 1 



