The current Evaline school house was built in 1925, serving as the fifth schoolhouse for the district that sits just between Napavine and Winlock on present-day Highway 603. Evaline School District #36 was established in 1883 and was first named Brown School. Only after the first school was destroyed in 1900, a new one room school was constructed. Evaline received its name from Northern Pacific Railroad, which was constructing a second main line, and named the community after Eveline Porter. However, they inadvertently misspelled Eveline and yet the new name stuck! After numerous additions and changes to the buildings used by students, the current and longest used school for Evaline was built in 1925 after a large fire completely destroyed the previous school. Major renovations completed in 2012, due to a sizeable levy passed by voters in 2010, revitalized the schoolhouse with additions including new windows, security upgrades, new wiring and plumbing, among other developments. The schoolhouse is still in use today and functions as Lewis County’s smallest school district, still known by many locally as a “one-room schoolhouse” because of its size. A historical marker detailing the school’s history can be found just outside the main entrance to the school on Schoolhouse Road.
