Held annually in May, Davina Williams Duerr described National Preservation Month as a yearly opportunity for Bothell’s Landmark Preservation Board — of which she serves as chair — to reach out and educate the community on the importance of historic preservation and the area’s local historic resources.

“Historic objects and structures tell the story of our community’s background, where we came from and perhaps where we’d like to go back to in a sense,” Duerr continued.

With that in mind, Duerr and the preservation board have suggested a few bits of local history they believe are more than worthy of preserving.

First up is the North Creek Schoolhouse, which now sits awaiting restoration in the city’s still new Centennial Park.

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According to landmark board member Pat Pierce, there are many aspects that make the North Creek school worthy of preservation. Perhaps first and foremost, it is the only one-room school house left in western Washington. That distinction helped earn it a place on local, state and national historic registers.

Bothell Superintendent of Public Works Clark Meek said that while the building is unique, just as importantly, it remains in good physical condition and — except the front porch — has never undergone any major renovations.

In other words, the materials are all original.

“It’s 90 percent,” Meek said, adding the school house in the city’s Bothell Landing Park had been transformed into a home and greatly altered from its original configuration.

Built in 1902, the North Creek school originally sat on what is now 31st Avenue Northeast. At the time of the building’s construction, that area actually was just a bit north of Bothell, according to the landmark board. Still, Pierce contends the building is evidence that Bothell’s founding residents put a high value on education.

Early city leaders asked for the creation of a school district in 1885. They didn’t get around to turning Bothell into a city until 1909.

North Creek served as a school for 18 years until 1920. The building was donated to the city in 2008 by the Van Natter family specifically for purposes of preservation. The city then moved the building from 31st Street to Centennial Park on 208th Street Southeast.

According to Meek, the structure was kept carefully intact except for that already mentioned front porch, which simply had deteriorated.

The rebuilding of the porch was guided by historic photos of the school.

According to Pierce, there are no photos of the inside of the building. Still, both she and Meek said the interior has undergone little alteration and its easy to imagine how the school room appeared to students in the early 1900s.

According to the city, the school is 23 feet tall, 35 feet long and 24 feet wide. As evidenced by a chalk tray that stretches the width of the single room, a chalk board dominated the raised teacher’s platform in front of the school.

At some point after the building ceased serving as a school, someone built what is now a badly battered storage loft over the teacher’s platform, but Meek said that loft will be removed.

In the back of the building is the only other major modification done to the interior. A small cloak room sits on either side of the school’s only door.

For a time, the school was used as a grange hall and that group apparently added to one cloak room what Meek calls the “lemonade stand,” a hole in the wall and sort of counter probably used to pass out coffee or refreshments. That, too, will be removed when restoration gets under way.

As she talks about the small building, Pierce notes the prevalence of the school’s tall windows. They let in plenty of natural light, obviously a necessity when the school was built and now a feature of many modern “green” buildings.

The windows actually led to a bit of a mystery. Pierce said preservation leaders looking at the school initially couldn’t figure out why there were holes cut in the walls of the two cloak rooms. Light was the answer. Looking inside the intact cloak room, it is easy to see both would be very dark without those holes.

While the city helped move the school to Centennial Park, City Council has decided funding restoration will be up to the community. The building likely will be used as community meeting space.

Meek estimates rebuilding costs at anywhere between $40,000 and $60,000. Any time table is dependent on funding.

Anyone looking to help can contact Pat Parkhurst at the city, (425) 486-3256.