Alamo Grammar School
…people began to come in with their families and we began to think about having a school for our children. So we built a schoolhouse on the Hemme Place (near today’s El Portal and Danville Blvd.) and hired a teacher.
She also boarded the teacher, Richard Webster. James Smith wrote about the little school as well, with compliments for teacher Webster. In later years three Alamo Grammar Schools were built near today’s corner of Stone Valley Road West and Danville Blvd. The 2 ½ acre property on which these schools were located was sold for $200 by Mary Ann Jones to be used for school purposes in 1876.
In 1921, after fundraising by the Alamo Community Club, a large playground apparatus was built, including swings, sand box, basketball and handball courts (leveled), plus a baseball diamond mapped off. But the school began to show its age.
In an article titled Ancient School at Alamo May Be Replaced Soon in a local paper, county physician Dr. C. R. Blake talked to a meeting of Alamo grammar school district residents. He
excoriated them for permitting their school to remain in its present condition. He told them that their school was a relic of an age now half a century gone; that it was unsanitary, an imposition on the children, and a disgrace to the district.
To get a drink of water, the children have to walk half a block from the dilapidated building to a 39-year old pump, which they have to prime and struggle with its wheezy old handle before they get results. Then they drink from a rusty tomato can. May 19, 1924
The school was extensively remodeled in 1924. Alamo residents discussed joining with the new Danville Union District but voted against it. Some of the parents sent their children to the new Danville school.
About 1934 the cloak room was torn out and front porch enclosed to make another classroom. Efforts to pass a bond issue for a new school were defeated in 1935, getting a WPA loan was attempted and plans were made, but nothing was built.
Other schools were built in Alamo as the population grew, including Stone Valley Intermediate (1952) and Rancho Romero Elementary (1959). From 1958-59 Alamo School had so many students that rooms were rented at the Methodist Church to accommodate the growth.
Today’s Alamo Elementary School at 100 Wilson Rd. opened in 1965. The original school bell has been placed in its courtyard.
The Alamo schools which once sat at Stone Valley Road and Danville Blvd. now have a plaque at that corner, dedicated by the San Ramon Valley Historical Society on October 14, 2000.
Beverly Lane, 2019
Sources: Contra Costa County History Center: School notebooks created by Barnard Freeman; Contra Costa Gazette: 1871; June 1880; 3-18-1893; 8-12-1911; 12-23-1921; 3-7-1935; 6-27-1935; 3-25-1936, Betty Dunlap interview by Irma Dotson, 1996, V. V. Jones, Alamo Today Jan 2004 and Remembering Alamo, p. 52, 185 ff J. D. Smith, Recollections, ed. By Gary Drummond, p. 17, 40