HS Board

School District: 26

Grade levels: K-8

Built: First building 1882

Second building 1924

Is it still standing? No

If not, when was it demolished? First building demolished some time after 1924, the second building was demolished in 1984

History

The history of the Feehanville School goes back to 1882 when Archbishop Patrick Feehan purchased the River Bend Knott Farm with the intention of establishing a training school to house the children displaced or made orphans by the Great Chicago Fire. He soon opened Saint Mary’s Training School, which was later renamed Maryville Academy. As a part of this development a small one-room schoolhouse was built for the local farm children. This stood on River Road, in what is today part of the Cook County Forest Preserve. In 1895 the River Trails School District 26 was founded to operate the school. One teacher taught 5 to 10 students in all the grades. The responsibility for providing room and board for this schoolteacher fell on the neighboring farmers, generally the Runge family and the Piepenbrink family. When the forest preserve took over the land, the school was moved to 1400 Kensington Road. The original one-room schoolhouse was replaced in 1924 by a brick, two-room school. The original building was sold to a neighboring farmer. Although it is not clear when it was eventually demolished, one story is that it was moved and used it as a hen house. The two room building continued to be used until 1982, when the school was closed due to changing demographics. Today all that is left of the Feehanville School is the school bell which was rededicated in 1995 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the River Trails School District.

 

School District: 57

Grade levels: K-8

Built: 1956

Is it still standing? No

If not, when was it demolished? 1994

History:

The Busse School was a definite product of the Baby Boom in Mount Prospect; it stood at the intersection of Owen and Henry Streets and was built in 1956. With the heights of the boom came the depths of the bust and with shifting demographic trends, School District 57 faced declining enrollment through the 1970s which forced them to close many schools. By 1982, the school district was forced to close the Busse School, although there was a large public outcry. For many the closing of Busse School was seen as the end of an era of neighborhood schools. When the building came down, a number of alumni of the school commented on it being last school in the community where the parents could see the school from their front porch and the children could go home for lunch in nice weather. In 1987 School District 57 sold the building to the Mount Prospect Park District, who rented the building out to a number of different organizations and then in 1994 demolished it to construct Busse Park.