Central School

Today I visited a historic site in East Lansing - Central Elementary School on Grand River. The school is an important site to the local history in education, the community, and architecture. It was built in 1917 and is the oldest schoolhouse in East Lansing. It is one of the oldest, public structures in the city, not located on the campus of Michigan State. The early formation of a school district helped to create the City of East Lansing in 1907. The schoolhouse played a role in the development of MSU's teacher preparation program in the early 1920s. The building was designed by Edwyn A. Bowd in a Neo-Classical style. Today, the school is used as a day care facility. Central School made the State Register list in 1984 and the National Register list in 1986. (http://www.mcgi.state.mi.us/hso/sites/6306.htm)

The school looked like a typical small schoolhouse of the 20th century. I wasn't aware of the significance of this school house to the city of East Lansing or even to Michigan State. Learning some of the history of this local historic site was a great way to jump into our project on the building of I-496 in Lansing.

Cherry Hill School

For our first assignment we had to find a local historic site and take a picture of it. I chose the Cherry Hill School in Canton, MI. I didn't know much information about this place which worked out because the other part of the assignment was to come up with some questions that visitors and historians might have about the place.

Some questions that I thought a visitor would ask were:
-When was it built?
-Who built it?
-How many students attended the school and what grades were they in?

Some questions that I thought a historian might ask were:
-Where were the student's families from that attended the school?
-Why did they settle in this area?
-Are there any primary sources available about the people who attended this school?
-Why was this school house preserved?
-Was education as important to the families who lived in the community back then as it is now?
-Did families contribute anything to the school house?

From the sign outside of the school (shown above) I was able to get some basic information about the school house which answered some of my general questions about the place. I thought it was interesting that Henry Ford was involved with this school and paid for improvements. To try and answer some of the questions that I came up with I looked for more information about this school and the area. I found the following website that was very helpful and interesting to read: http://www.cantonhistoricalsociety.org/