Former Indiana Elementary School Building

Madden School, Bedford Indiana

Date added: September 28, 2024

Categories:
Indiana
School

West elevation (primary facade), and part of north elevation (1998)

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Madden School in Bedford, Indiana was built in 1923.

The public school system in Bedford began in 1871. It was in response to state law adopted in 1867 that allowed towns to set up their own school systems. The state also acted in 1897 to make school compulsory for children between the ages of eight and 14. This law was changed to extend the requirement to 15 and 16-year-olds too in 1913.

At the same time compulsory education laws swelled the student body, and economic expansion in the limestone industry caused rapid population increases in Bedford, especially in the areas near the stone mills. The industry was labor intensive, and to house those workers modest houses filled the surrounding areas.

The school was sited within 10 blocks of 11 limestone mills, and another, the Indiana Limestone Company's Purdue Mill, was under construction the year the school was built. Four more mills would be built in the area in the remainder of the 1920s to feed the demand for stone. The mills were located primarily in three areas: west of J and south of Seventh streets; east and south of Summit Lane and H Street; and north of Fourth Street between the Monon Railroad main line and the Old Bedford Belt Railroad. The mills produced stone for the Vanderbilt Mansion in North Carolina as well as buildings in Chicago, New York City and elsewhere.

Unemployment was not a problem in Roaring Twenties Bedford. The problem was housing, as a look at stories in the Bedford Daily Mail in 1923 shows. One story said industries were having trouble keeping men because of a scarcity of homes. Another story described a "big boom" in the stone industry, with the production of 9,616,670 cubic feet of building stone in the Lawrence and Monroe County fields, the largest output since 1912.

The booming limestone industry fueled the town's growth. In 1880, Bedford's population was 2,198. It grew to 3,351 by 1890, 6,115 in 1900, and 8,716 in 1910. Growth slowed in the 1910s, reaching just 9,076 in 1920. But rapid growth resumed in the 1920s, with the city swelling to 13,208 residents by 1930.

The area surrounding the school site, an area so undeveloped that it wasn't even shown on Sanborn fire insurance maps prior to 1904, quickly grew into a densely peopled neighborhood. By 1904, there were 50 dwellings in about a six-block area extending west and south of the school site. By the time of the next map in 1909 there were 11 more, then another 14 on the 1922 map and by the time of the 1929 map there were a total of 84 homes.

To accommodate this growth, the school board members W.A. "Billie" Brown, J.D. Martin and John Fry agreed in 1917 to have a two-story, stone, grade school building built on the east side of H Street between Sixth and Seventh Streets. On Feb. 17^th, 1917, a half block was purchased, from Sixth to Seventh Street and from H to the north-south alley. The building plans were shelved, however, when the United States entered World War II. It wasn't until March 19^th, 1923, that the Bedford City Council authorized the school board to issue bonds to build the structure. The bonds were in the sum of $23,500 to build the four-room school building.

The school was named Madden in honor of the first superintendent of the Bedford public schools, J.H. Madden. Madden was named superintendent in 1871 and served for 10 years. He was the high school's principal and his wife was his assistant. She succeeded him as principal. Superintendent Madden was said to have once drawn attention to the need for better funding of the public schools by cutting his own annual salary from $1,200 to $1,000. The city's first school board formed in 1874 under his tenure. He and his wife left Bedford so he could teach at Illinois College and Normal School in Danville.

Madden School opened in 1924 with Molly Box as principal. Box had been an English teacher at the Junior High School. She was joined by teachers Nellie Brewer, Gail Clark and Ariet Bailey and assistant Josephine Rainbolt.

The school building's Neo-Classical Revival architecture was part of a trend among civic leaders nationwide who thought classical architecture would symbolize authority and culture for their growing cities and towns. The style is similar to the much earlier Greek Revival style, however, it differs by its use of elaborate classical detail, more permanent materials such as brick and stone, and more massive scale. The style was often used for public buildings, institutional structures and banks.

In May of 1924, Prof. and Mrs. Madden returned to Bedford to help celebrate the 50^th graduating class of the high school he started. The Maddens were guests of honor at a high school alumni banquet held at the new Greystone Hotel on the courthouse square. The schools that he started with five teachers and 300 students had grown by 1924 to 87 teachers and 2,813 students.

According to a later North Lawrence schools facility study, the northern third of the building was constructed as an addition in 1925. The addition matches the southern half of the building in design and materials. The construction date of the addition is not certain, however, and may have been in 1926. Evidence for the later date includes a name and date that looks like Aug. 14^th, 1926 inscribed into the wet plaster of a wall that was covered by a blackboard.

Some three decades later, more land was purchased by the school board in 1955 and 1960, adding Lots 114 through 121 of the Walls and Boruff Addition to lots 97 through 104 already owned by the Bedford schools.

One of the teachers in the later years of the building's time as a school was Phil Deckard, who taught at Madden from 1969 until it closed. He said grades one through three were located on the first level and grades four through six were on the second level. The school colors were black and gold, and they were called the Madden Bulldogs.

He recalled that there was no gymnasium or library, and the windows were leaky. But class sizes were small, just 17 or 18 students.

Clinton Rominger was the school's last principal. He served from 1959-1965, then later became director of elementary education before returning to Madden as principal in 1971. He retained his director of elementary education duties, because the school was small enough he could do both jobs. He said his predecessors as principal were Frank Hunter and Emma Kirk.

Rominger remembers the school students as children who appreciated what educators did for them. Many of the neighboring households were lower income, but nevertheless, they had pride and a good attitude, he said. He recalls a very active parent-teacher association that raised funds for school books and activities and won a citywide beautification contest by planting flowers on the school grounds.

In 1975, preparations began for the possible closing of the school. Superintendent Dan A. Schafer led parents of Madden School children on a tour of the West 16^th Street Elementary and Parkview School and met with them. He reported to the school board that the parents were generally in favor of moving their children to Parkview School, and he recommended the move be made. On April 16^th, 1975, the North Lawrence School Board voted to merge the Madden students into the Parkview School student body, and Madden closed at the end of the school year.

Prior to the May 1975 school board meeting, the board met to review the Madden School Building for future use. In August, the board asked its Executive Committee and administrators to make recommendations concerning the use of Madden, complete with estimates of renovation costs and an evaluation of whether school storage problems could be solved by using the building. In October, the group reported back with a study of the cost of remodeling the school building for use as the Administrative and Service Center. The cost was estimated at $53,582, including new carpet and window replacement. The board authorized the taking of bids, which were approved trade by trade throughout the remainder of the year and included the closing in of the basement windows with limestone. Vocational students carried out much of the interior renovation.

With the school closed and transformed into an administration center, the school board in October 1976 leased part of the Madden property to the Bedford City Park and Recreation Board for installation of a playground as a neighborhood park for younger children.

By the 1990s, the school corporation had begun to seek a new location for its administration center. After selecting and then rejecting several sites, the school board settled on a W Street location near the new Stalker School adjacent to Murray Forest Park. The new center was completed in 1997, the same year lots 114-117 of the Madden property were sold to Hoosier Uplands Economic Development Corp. for the Hoosier Uplands' Headstart facility, extending the tradition of child education on the property.

Madden School went on the auction block April 25^th, 1998. Chuck and Pam Jones purchased the building, along with the land from H Street east to the alley, for $20,000. Soon afterward, work began on the restoration and renovation of the building for office use.

Other surviving historic resources associated with the history of the Bedford schools are the Neoclassical-style Bedford High School (built in 1911-1912), located in the 1500 block of N Street; the Bedford High School Gym (1926), 1500 block of O Street; and the Richardsonian Romanesque-style Stalker School (1899) on Eighth Street. The architect of the high school was Elmer Dunlap. The designers of the other existing Bedford school buildings are unknown.

Building Description

Madden School is located at 620 H Street in Bedford, Indiana, the county seat of Lawrence County. (The address is sometimes referred to as 618 H Street.) Since its construction in 1923, with a three-room addition in 1925-1926, the school building has been used as a school, school administration building, and is currently being restored and renovated for use as office space.

The building dominates the east side of the 600 block of H and is the only building on the east side of H between Sixth and Seventh Streets. Two sidewalks lead to the front entrances from H Street. A parking lot is located behind the building. The lot abuts the north-south alley that divides the block. Two large maple trees are located on the lot, one just to the south of the building along H Street and the other southeast of the building near the alley.

The two-story school has a raised basement level underneath the entire building. The building is rectangular in shape, with stairways at both front entrances. Walls are of limestone and brick, with limestone facing over brick on the north, west and south elevations and brick alone on the rear, or east elevation. The roof is surrounded by parapet wall on all but the rear elevation. The roof slopes gently to the rear and is made up of a concrete slab with a rubber membrane covering. The building is approximately 113 feet wide and 34 feet deep.

Madden School's Neo-Classical Revival styling is most evident on the front elevation, with full height projections for the entrances, which are embellished with pediments that rise above the line of the parapet wall. Each entrance has an additional projection at ground level for an arched doorway opening with entablature. The entablature has a fluted frieze with a center shield and a cove cornice. The styling is also evident in the facade's symmetry, with identical detailing and spacing on each side of the center windows.

The front elevation has three sets of triple window openings located on the basement level. These openings, like the basement window openings on the north and south elevations, were filled in with limestone blocks in 1976 when the building was converted into school offices. Both the first and second levels have three window openings located between the two entrances. The windows are metal replacement windows also installed as part of the 1976 remodeling, and many of the panes were replaced with opaque panels. Above the entrances are the structure's largest windows, extending from the main level to the upper level to provide light for the stairways.

The limestone walls are laid in such a manner that each alternate course of block is moved over half the length of the block. On each side of the front elevation is a vertical stone panel, with smaller horizontal recessed panels in the parapet wall that surrounds the three limestone-faced sides of the building. Just below the horizontal panels is a cornice and water table.

Stone sills anchor the window openings, and the walls have a stone base.

The rear of the building is simpler. The rear wall is brick with 14 vertical window openings and doorways. Nine of the 10 openings on the first and second floors have windows, and all have stone sills. The four basement window openings have been bricked in, with the doorway opening re-cut below grade to serve as the handicapped access. The brick chimney that begins in the basement boiler room is visible above the roof from the rear of the building.

Inside, there are six rooms designed originally as classrooms, located on the first and second floors. On each level, a classroom occupies the center of the building. Behind the center

classroom is a hall which opens to the stairways and the classrooms on the south and north ends of the building. The basement level houses the restrooms, boiler room and kitchen. The basement hall features arched doorways.

The main entrances open onto the stairway landing between the basement and first levels. There are two sets of doorways at each entrance. The outer doorways are replacement glass and aluminum units. The interior doorways are original six-pane glass and wood doors. Other original interior features in the stairway areas include terrazzo floors, wood banisters and radiators.

Vocational school students sheathed the interior in vinyl paneling when the building was converted into school offices in 1976, and many interior doors were replaced and dropped ceilings were installed. As part of the current renovation work undertaken by new owners Chuck and Pam Jones, the paneling, replacement doors and dropped ceilings have been removed, restoring much of the historical feeling of the building interior. Schoolhouse light fixtures have been rehung in the stairways, plaster has been repaired at the entries and stairways, and panels have been removed that for decades covered the original glass arches above the entrance doorways.

The Jones' are preparing the first level for offices. The center classroom is being divided into three rooms, with eight-foot dividing walls with glass between the top of the walls and the ceilings to preserve the feeling of a large, high-ceiling space. Chuck Jones is an engineer with the firm that will occupy the offices, Jones, Kuehn, Imhoff Engineering, Inc. The company designs anchoring and support systems for natural stone including limestone, granite and slate. The old school provides the company with a home that, because of its limestone cladding, is emblematic of the work the firm does.