Former Romanesque Style School Building in IL

Lincoln School, Rock Island Illinois

Date added: July 29, 2024

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Built in 1893, Lincoln School is the only Romanesque building still standing in Rock Island or Moline. Lincoln School is the only full-fledged Romanesque-style building in Rock Island. Memorial Christian Church in downtown Rock Island is the only other structure that shows some Romanesque influence. There are no records of other Romanesque buildings in Rock Island with the exception of the three other schools designed by E. S. Hammatt, the YMCA Building and the Mitchell and Lynde Block Building, both also designed by E. S. Hammatt, and the Hartz-Bahnsen Building (architect unknown). All these buildings have been demolished. Three significant Romanesque-influenced buildings other than schools have been demolished in downtown Rock Island, as noted above. The YMCA Building featured a tower, stone arches and a rusticated base. This building was demolished in 1920. The Mitchell and Lynde Block, which had a round turret, wide stone arched entrance and arched windows was demolished at an unknown date. The Hartz-Bahnsen Building, which displayed arched bays with textured surfaces and a stone arched entry with grillwork, was also demolished at an unknown date.

Lincoln School is the oldest surviving school building in Rock Island and is the last remaining school of four designed by E. S. Hammatt for Rock Island in the Romanesque manner, Lincoln was the largest and most impressive of the four. Eugene Field School was built in 1889 and demolished in the 1940's. Longfellow School was built in 1891. It burned in 1934 and was refaced and rebuilt. None of the exterior appearance remains. Irving School was built in 1893 and was demolished in 1959. It is apparent from the number of Romanesque-inspired designs by Hammatt that he was the principal practitioner of the style in Rock Island. The Lincoln School is the sole survivor of Hammatt's Romanesque designs in Rock Island.

Lincoln School is located on a highly visible corridor near downtown Rock Island. The school is in an area of activity and stands as a visual reminder of the city's educational history. The school is situated beside an elementary school currently in operation, and across the street from a turn-of-the-century domed church and brick funeral home. It is surrounded by residential areas on two sides and light commercial and mixed residential areas on the other two sides. While there are other buildings of architectural or historic merit in the city of Rock Island, Lincoln School is outstanding as a superb and only surviving local interpretation of the Romanesque style. It has the characteristic hipped roof, brick walls, bold and massive tower, rounded arches, and rusticated stone base, portals, and horizontal courses. Each of the three entrances is visually significant, with carved and rusticated stone archways and piers. Each entry could stand on its own as an imposing main entrance.

Structurally, the building relies on solid masonry bearing walls and heavy timber roof support. The ridge of the hipped roof stand 41 feet from the attic floor. The roof is supported by 36 foot long wood joists. John Volk Construction Company of Rock Island milled all of the interior mouldings, trim, doors, sashes and balustrades.

Edward S. Hammatt was born in Geneseo, New York. He was educated at LeHigh University, a precursor of M.I.T., and at the Boston Institute of Technology. Hammatt was strongly influenced by the work of Henry Hobson Richardson and brought Richardson's American version of the Romanesque style to Rock Island and the Quad Cities area. He established an office in Davenport, Iowa, in 1883. Hammatt designed eleven commercial buildings in Rock Island and Moline including the Deere and Company Office Building 1887-1891; more than twelve recorded churches such as the Episcopal Church in Moline, 1891-1907; five college structures such as Luther Hall for Augustana College in 1884 and Kemper Hall for Griswold College in 1884. He designed The Hotel Monte Colfax in Colfax, Iowa, fifteen residences including residences in North Carolina, Washington and Maine, as well as the four schools already mentioned. He designed the dining room of the Weyerhauser "House on the Hill" in Rock Island, Illinois.

Hammatt's influential design for Lincoln School contrasts the freedom of movement and openness of the interior with the characteristic Romanesque massive protectiveness of the exterior. The allocation and orientation of space was and remains very innovative for a school structure. It is a plan which is the antithesis of isolated classrooms arranged off long corridors which has been the common school plan in America. On April 29^th, 1905, the Rock Island Argus noted that:

The great center halls of the (Lincoln) building have proved to be one of the most satisfactory arrangements in the schools of the city.

Its capacious halls are its peculiar feature, and educators from all parts of the country have remarked on this characteristic, not be be found in any school in the United States, so far as is known … The buildings erected later than 1892 have halls patterned largely after the plan of Lincoln School, though somewhat moderated.

The exterior of the building is 95% intact with all of its major architectural features having their original appearance. In the interior of the building, all original architectural and ornamental features are present with the exception of some small decorative elements such as hardware. Modifications to the interior since construction have involved non-structural additions or minor cosmetic changes to the surfaces.

Building Description

Public School Number 04 is a three-story plus attic building designed in 1893-4 by Edward S. Hammatt (1856-1907). Ninety-five percent of its exterior remains intact. Major alterations have been the removal of the top one-third of its bell tower, replacement of its original (unknown) roof covering with composite shingle, the addition of two fire escapes, and the construction of a tunnel to a nearby gymnasium.

The design of the building is a modified 120-foot square carved out at its northwest corner to introduce light into the core of the building and to showcase the split-level maple staircase. The building is simple and bold in massing, with minimal return on the windows, no eaves, and a one-on-one pitch roof. The hipped roof rises 41 feet at the ridge line and includes cross gables on each of three sides. It is built of brick and both Anamosa and Bedford limestone. A flared and rusticated limestone base reinforces the visual weightiness of the building. The limestone at the ground level is repeated in the belt courses and in the sills and lintels of the rectangular windows. The original windows were double-hung one-over-one. The present windows are double-hung one-over-nine.

The south face of the building is fronted by a brick bell tower with stone quoining. A carved stone nameplate is set into the tower. The original height of the bell tower was 118 feet from grade rising 39 feet above the peak of the hip roof. The south entrance of the building is sheltered by a detailed limestone arch carved with fern and acanthus design. A wrought-iron scrollwork spans the arch. The archway then leads to a recessed entry with two sets of double doors. Panels set into the doors and lunette windows above the doors have beveled glass. The attic level windows on this south side have a massive stone sill and the entire wall forming the gabled parapet projects forward.

The east face of the building has a similarly recessed, arched entrance. The arch, as on the south face, has rusticated voussoirs with concentric circle decorations carved in low relief in the center of each voussoir. On this face below the gabled parapet is a three-story bowed wall-bay.

A parapeted gable which is flush with the lower wall is the outstanding feature of the west face of the building. The north gabled parapet projects forward from the building as it does on the south face.

The northwest entrance formed by the inset northwest corner is the principal entrance to the building. It leads to wide, graceful split staircases of maple which climb to the attic level. A small gymnasium and connecting tunnel built in the 1960's obscures this entrance at present. However, construction of this gymnasium and tunnel did not affect the historic structure and fabric of the school building.