Multiple bond votes in the 2010s to replace Bellevue Elementary failed. This time, the Bellevue school district has scaled back its construction proposal, and the complex with a building from 1848, where school has been held since 1861, would remain in use.
Phase 1, according to the school and the Bellevue Herald-Leader, would build an elementary for grades 3-5 on the site of the current school for grades 6-12. This is the part that requires a bond vote. Lower grades would stay at the current site until Phase 2, which would build an addition to the new elementary. That would be paid for entirely with PPEL/SAVE money, the district says, and would start around 2028.
The story and school both call the 1848 building “one of the oldest” in the state. But a quarter-century ago*, the Des Moines Register cited Bellevue Elementary as the oldest school building in Iowa. Working off a list with that story, Bellevue Elementary is Iowa’s only public school with classroom space from the 19th century in use in 2023. Of the others on the list of pre-1900 facilities:
- All those in Sioux City were replaced in 2006 or the 2010s.
- Burlington replaced one and sold the other to a private school, hence the “public” qualifier. History of Des Moines County, Iowa, Volume 1 (1915) pegs Prospect Hill School to 1892.
- Decorah’s 1897 East Side Elementary was ordered closed by the state fire marshal in 1999. (Decorah Journal, 6/17/99)
- Vinton’s 1898 East Elementary closed in 2002.
- The oldest part of Sabula’s school opened in January 1883. It closed in 2013 when East Central merged with Preston and was demolished in the 2015-16 school year.
- Des Moines’ Moulton Elementary School (old North High of 1896, according to a 1976 history of the district) is listed, but the oldest part today is from 1914.
- “Moulton-Udell school boiler room”: I thought this was weirdly specific, but I found the answer: When Moulton’s 1897 school building was demolished in 1987, the Daily Iowegian said, “The basement of that building is being retained” (8/28/87). So technically there is a part of the Moulton complex that is 116 years old (in 2010s aerial photos, the white-roofed portion directly west of third base), but it’s not classroom space.
- To the best of my knowledge, the next two oldest active public school buildings are Greenwood (1902) and McKinley (1905) elementaries in Des Moines. They are followed by Davenport Central High School (1907) and Des Moines East High School (1912, side facing East 13th Street).
- Those are opening years, not cornerstone years. Whenever possible, because construction times vary, I’m trying to date schools to when they opened to students.
- A brief in the January 31, 1907, Cedar Rapids Republican said a commencement ceremony in Davenport on January 29, “the first function in the new building,” had an incident between juniors and seniors that resulted in five expulsions: sons of the county school superintendent, school board president, music teacher, and two in “prominent families”.
- The entrance to East bears a dramatic resemblance to Curtiss Hall at Iowa State University, built a few years earlier. Both were designed by Proudfoot & Bird/Proudfoot, Bird & Rawson, responsible for lots and lots and lots of landmark Iowa buildings.
- Those include the 1915 school in Toledo, scheduled to close in 2024.
- Arthur and Garfield elementaries in Cedar Rapids, which opened in 1915, are scheduled to close in 2024 too.
- We have plenty of the 1911-30 crop that has stuck around. (To wit.) However, many have been shuttered (but still extant) or replaced just since 1997. Newell’s 1912 building has been replaced in the past year, or if not it soon will be. Based on research so far, Blairsburg (1910) and Victor (early 1913) and are contenders for second-oldest rural school behind Bellevue.
*The August 31, 1997, Register made Historic Pages following a last-minute addition in the first edition that would later be updated: “Princess Diana hurt, boyfriend killed in car crash.”