Carl Schurz High School - Schurzone Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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new day dawns as a new era opens before us. Together we, the Youth of America, eagerly look forward to the new and expanding horizons in the World of Tomorrow - a world richly endowed with many benefits. he achievements of the past have built an ever widening perspective of unlimited opportunities for the future. The progress of science, industry, the arts, and education during the years gone by serves only as an example of what can be developed and accomplished in the years which lie ahead. he future is a challenge. We accept the chal- lenge presented to our initiative, our courage, our loy- alty, and go forward with determination and resolution. new decade lies before us. With education the torch to guide us, the experiences of the past to teach us, and the knowledge of the present to encour- age us we stand steadfast in our hopes for a bright and secure future for . . :yn fAQ eC6L 8 L5 .An Ol0l90I tlfUflLty 0

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we pl 0Ag.lfL8 Behind the Schurz of today, lie many history-making events connected with education, not only in Chicago, but in the State of Illinois as well. The early people who settled in this area, then called Iefferson Township, were of Scandinavian and German stock . . . hard working, intelligent, ambi- tious, progressive people who wanted the best for their children . . . people who wanted them to have that which most of them lacked . . . an education. In 1872 a special act was passed by the Illinois State Legislature author- izing the establishment of township high schools in this state. The first to be established under this act was the Iefferson Township High School, which opened its doors that same year. It was located in one room on the second floor of the town hall at Irving Park and Milwaukee Avenue, the present site of the Northwest National Bank. Rooms on the first floor housed the police and fire departments. Mr. B. Farnsworth was the organizer and principal of the high school for almost eight years, conducting the high school in connection with an elementary school. Young people, eager for knowledge, converged upon the school, many coming from homes miles away. Enrollment grew by leaps and bounds and in a short time a new building became necessary. On the present site of the Mayfair elementary school the new building was begun in 1878. It consisted of three floors, a basement, and a cupola which could be seen for miles around and served as a guide by which travelers could steer their way. On October 5, 1883 is was opened with a formal dedication. In a few short years it too overflowed with students. A church across the street was taken over, the stables behind the school, used for housing the stu- dents' horses, were converted into class rooms, physics and chemistry labora- tories were placed in the basement, and four portable buildings were built on the grounds. It wasn't long before construction on another new building was begun in a new location, and in September 1910 the students bade farewell to Old Ieff and again moved on to a new era in a new building. With the new location came a new name -- Carl Schurz High School. but the traditions of the old and the new schools are still kept alive through the Schurz-Iefferson Alumni Association which held its first meeting in 1887. It was Mr. C. A. Pettersen, one of the teachers who moved with the stu- dents to Schurz in'1910 who, almost single-handed, sponsored the Schurz- Iefferson Alumni Association and perpetuated the tradition of the two schools as the traditions of one great school group. Iune 1950 marked the sixty-third Alumni meeting. The first class to graduate from Iefferson High School in 1885 had one member, Mrs. Ellen Hazelton Nicol now living in Grosse Point, Michigan. The Iune 1910 class, last class to graduate from Iefferson, had forty-four members: the Iune 1911 class, first class of graduates from Schurz had sixty-seven members. Mr. C. A. Cook was appointed principal of Iefferson when it opened, and Mr. F. A. Plapp, who. too came to Schurz and taught science here for twenty years, was his assistant principal and science teacher. The work of Ielferson High School became firmly established, its faculty rated high, and when the village of Iefferson was annexed to Chicago in 1890 it became one of the regular high schools. The curriculum was designed to prepare students for college. Iefferson was so far ahead of most of the other high schools at that time that a half year's credit was usually given to any of its students entering college. Many interesting stories have come down through the years regarding HOld Ieff as it was lovingly called, stories of fun in school and out, stories of the fashions of those days for boys and girls, stories of the successful careers of many of its graduates. The memory of Iefferson still lingers in the hearts of its students, and as long as any of them are alive the spirit of Iefferson Township High School, pioneer in education in Illinois and on the Northwest side of Chicago, will never die!