The One-Room Schoolhouse at Meister and Leavitt – Part 1

One of the more intriguing photos in the Arcadia book Images of America – Lorain is the photo above of an old one-room schoolhouse, part of the collection of the Lorain Historical Society

The photo caption reads: “On November 9, 1827, the first school board for Black River Township was elected and $200 was appropriated for the construction of the schoolhouse. It was located at the northeast corner of Meister and Leavitt Road in the township. At that time it was not a part of what was to become Lorain, but the site was later added to the city. The brick building served students for 20 years and was replaced with a fire station.”

Here’s a vintage photo of the fire station (now used by the Lorain Police Department). An online Chronicle-Telegram newspaper article indicates that the fire station was there by September 13, 1944.

But before the fire station could be built and put to work, the school would have to have been torn down.

But when was it actually torn down? That's a question that I’ve been trying to answer since I started this blog back in 2009. One would reason that the demolition of such a historic landmark at Meister and Leavitt would surely have been covered by the local newspapers. But despite hours of searching, I've been unable to find an article about its demolition.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to report that I now have a pretty good idea when it was demolished. Unfortunately, I’m also pretty sure that the photo above in the Arcadia book is not of the one-room schoolhouse at Meister and Leavitt as believed.