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 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.
Old one-room school houses are interesting to me. There is one still standing on Indian Hollow Rd. in Carlisle Township near the train tracks and Black River. I believe it's made of stone, but have no real idea when it was built. Civil War era or before? I'm assuming it's still standing. I heard it was used as a school house back in the day, but I never researched it. Dan, I know you don't venture into Elyria/Grafton area too much, but that old structure sits near the RR tracks the infamous Blinky Morgan used. He was a train robber and murderer who allegedly hid his stashes of money and other stolen goods in NE Ohio (among many other areas). One hiding spot was supposedly Cascade Park not far from the bear cages.
ReplyDeleteHi Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check that all out – it sounds like an interesting story.
I share your interest in the old schoolhouses, but boy are they hard to try and research. It's almost impossible to match up an old photo of one of an unknown location with one indicated on a township map.
That wooden barn looking building at the corner of Middle Ridge and Hidden Valley use to be a school. Someone hit it back in the 90's and there use to be windows. They made it all look like it does today when that happened.
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