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Health & Fitness

Where Do the Schools Get Their Names—The History of St. Charles Schools, Part 2

By the mid-1920s, not only was the Haines School full, it was becoming overcrowded.

Our previous blog post on the left off in 1898, with the building of the original Haines School near the corner of 7th Avenue and Main Street. The Haines School was a combination Junior and Senior High School; one floor of the building was the Junior High, the second floor was the High School, and the third floor was the gymnasium. This school was built to put an end to the fighting between students at the West Side and East Side Schools. While the fighting did end as a result of the students being classmates rather than rivals, there was still some controversy surrounding the school.

Many west side residents were upset that the new school was on the east side of town (anyone else having flash backs to the eastsiders argument from the 1850’s), others thought that it was being built too far from the town center, and most were concerned that it was too large and would never be used at a full capacity. The townspeople were soon proven wrong!

By the mid-1920s, not only was the Haines School full, it was becoming overcrowded. Another school was needed to accommodate the growing student population. The new St. Charles Community High School was built in 1926 at the corner of Main and 7th streets (that’s right on the west side of town for those of you keeping score). Again there were cries that the school was too large and too far outside the downtown area; would the residents never learn? Most of you reading this will recognize the St. Charles Community High School by another name, George Thompson High School (or as it is today). With the high school students now attending school on the west side, the Haines School on the east side became a Junior High.

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The Haines School had been named after Charles Haines, the well-known and loved St. Charles resident who paid for the school to be built. The Community High School was renamed Thompson in 1959 after George Thompson who served St. Charles as both a principal at the Haines School and later Superintendant of St. Charles Schools. Mr. Thompson was principal from 1914 until 1917 when he resigned to serve in the Navy during WWI. In 1919, Edward Baker persuaded Mr. Thompson to return as Superintendent, a post he held for the next forty years.

The new high school was not the only new school built in St. Charles during the 1920s. A new elementary school was built to replace the old East Side School which burned down in 1928. The new school was built in the same spot (this time using brick instead of wood) and was given a new name, the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School. Today, Lincoln is the oldest grade school still being used in St. Charles. Seventeen years earlier a new school was built on the west side to replace the old West Side School. This year the Evan Shelby School building (named after the first settler to arrive in St. Charles) is celebrating its 100th birthday. The building currently is owned by Batavia Enterprises and houses offices.

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Haines, Thompson and Shelby were not the only schools in St. Charles to be named for well-known residents or educators. In the 1950s four more elementary schools were built in St. Charles and all were named for prominent St. Charles educators. , , , were all honored by St. Charles for their dedication and service to the schools.

Amelia Anderson had been a school nurse and township welfare nurse in St. Charles for over twenty years. She took it upon herself to make sure that the children in town had proper nutrition, health care and dental care especially during the difficult years of the Depression when many households were suffering.

Alice Davis was perhaps the most widely known of these women. Miss Davis attended the Haines High School before continuing her education at the DeKalb Normal School, now Northern Illinois University. After her graduation, Miss Davis returned to teach in St. Charles, first at the West Side School where she taught 4th grade and then at the Haines Junior High where she was a 6th grade teacher. Later, Miss Davis was the principal of the Haines Junior High. In 1940, she wrote the Settlement and Growth of St. Charles, a text used in the grade schools to teach local history.

Harriet Richmond taught for 34 years in St. Charles and Elgin before serving as principal of the East Side School and Lincoln Elementary School. Ms. Richmond’s brother, Ralph, was Mayor of St. Charles from 1957-1961. The Munhall sisters were also both teachers and principals. Both attended the DeKalb Normal School and combined had over eighty years in the classroom.

All of these women are fondly remembered to this day by former pupils and will be remembered for generations to come for their contributions to education in St. Charles because of the schools bearing their names.

There was another new school building erected in the 1950s that should be noted, the second . By the early 1950s the original school on the east side of town was starting to experience structural problems, part of the building had already been closed off and more issues with the walls and roof were starting to occur. In 1953, the school was declared no longer safe for students and the building closed. The students were moved to a wing of the high school until a new junior high could be built.

In 1956, the old Haines School was torn down by a local businessman and a new Piggly Wiggly grocery store was built in its place. The following year construction began on the new Charles Haines Junior High on land next to the high school, and students moved into the building in 1959.

Up next, in part 3 of the history of St. Charles Schools: private schools, a four year university and continued expansion.

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