Demolition begins on Cooper building
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - Much of the facade of the J.W. Cooper school is already gone on Monday, April 29, 2024.
SHENANDOAH – It took about two years to build, but it won’t take nearly as long to raze.
Monday evening, the majority of the front façade of the former J.W. Cooper Memorial High School had already been wiped from the North White Street streetscape.
The building had served as Shenandoah’s central high school from 1918 until 1982, first serving as a temporary hospital during the Spanish Flu pandemic and surviving the Mine Subsidence of 1940. It continued to serve as the Shenandoah Valley School District’s first central elementary school until the mid 1990s.
Earlier this month, after a partial collapse on the Lehigh Street side, over a decade of work to save the building came to an end as Kent Steinmetz agreed to sign the building over to Dwight Williams, owner of Trendsetter Investments, for demolition.
Structural demolition began Monday, beginning with the southwest corner — the “Boys” entrance — and the room which previously housed the Beverly Mattson Memorial Food Bank.
Efforts to relocate the food bank are still ongoing.
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