Abandoned school in Kentucky
Charles D Jacob Elementary School, Louisville Kentucky
The land on which Jacob Elementary School was built was originally owned by Charles Donald Jacob, four-term mayor of Louisville, and was in close proximity to Jacob's Park, later known as Iroquois Park. In its earliest days, it also bore the names "Jacob's Addition Graded School" or "Community School." When it began in 1892, The Jacob School was an independent county school whose first location is unrecorded. In 1898 a new two-room frame structure opened on the southeast corner of Camden and Woodruff Avenues.
Fourteen years later, a larger Jacob School was opened on the corner of Camden and Wheeler Avenues, with a capacity of one-hundred-twenty-five students. This address was once Bennett and Bannon Avenues; the name "Bennett" was changed to "Camden," and "Bannon" was renamed "Wheeler." The new 1912 school was a seven-room structure and became known as Jacob Addition Community School. At times Jacob was on double session, with two teachers using the same classroom.
Jacob's Addition had its own school district until 1922, when the City of Louisville annexed the burgeoning Jacobs Neighborhood and the Louisville City Schools annexed the school. When an extensive addition was constructed in 1932 at 3670 Wheeler Avenue adjacent to the 1912 building, and the older structure was slated to be closed, the name was changed to the Charles D. Jacob School, in honor of former Mayor Charles Donald Jacob.
Jacob's Addition School, as it was called, is one of the huge tan-brick schools constructed during the Depression by the Works Progress Administration. By 1940, the WPA had been credited with constructing or working on 94 schools in Jefferson County.
In 1949, the original 1912 building was reopened as an annex for students from the Rutherford and Hazelwood areas who were bused to Jacob during construction of new buildings at their respective sites. Afterwards, the smaller 1912 building at the Jacob School site continued to remain open due to increased enrollment from the Iroquois area. A brick corridor connected the two structures.
In 1991 a new facility was completed and the Charles D. Jacob Elementary School migrated to its current site, 3701 East Wheatmore Drive in Louisville's South End. The old building on Wheeler was renamed the "Jacob Annex." Until it was sold at auction in 2006, it housed Jefferson County Public School administrative offices and various district programs (Archives, Jefferson County Public Schools).
Jacob Elementary School was one of three new elementary schools dedicated to become part of the Louisville public school system in December 1932. The Louisville Courier-Journal described Jacob as "a buff brick building of modern architecture." The Ellen Churchill Semple building "is of red brick in the Georgian style." The James Russell Lowell School "is built of red-brown brick in the Romanesque style." All were trimmed with stone. The newspaper described the buildings as "...the most modern type of schoolroom construction. All are fireproof, having a reinforced concrete skeleton with brick and tile walls....Each school has a library, a gymnasium with stage, boys' and girls' shower rooms, project room, shop, medical suite, and cafeteria. Each has terrazzo corridor floors, classroom floors of reinforced concrete with maple, and battleship linoleum floor coverings in library, office, and special rooms. All have electric clock and bell systems, telephones in all rooms, and electric fire alarm systems. The heating and ventilating systems are of the latest type. The air is washed and introduced by forced ventilation" (Louisville Courier-Journal December 15, 1932, 11).
Mayor Charles D. Jacob
Mayor Jacob, whom the school was named after, was one of the more popular mayors in Louisville's history, having been elected to office for four terms. Considered elegant, he always wore a signature yellow rose. Jacob is known as the father of the Louisville park system. Iroquois was originally known as Jacob Park. He was a son of one of the city's richest citizens. His father, the first president of the Bank of Kentucky, had extensive real estate holdings. Jacob was the first mayor to occupy the new City Hall; he constructed the first city Home for the Aged and Infirm; and was responsible for the first granite and asphalt streets. It was during his first administration that street lighting was changed from gas to electricity.
Born in 1838, he was next to youngest of 10 children; one brother served as lieutenant governor of Kentucky. Jacob, who grew up on the Jacob homestead, which made up an entire city block, bordered by Third, Fourth Walnut (Muhammad Ali Blvd.) and Chestnut Streets, was educated by private tutors.
While he was attending Harvard College, Jacob contracted diphtheria and had to return to Louisville. For eight years his condition prevented him from engaging in civic affairs. Jacob first won election in 1872, defeating incumbent Mayor John G. Baxter by 900 votes in 1872; at the age of 32, he became the youngest mayor in the city's history.
Speaking at the dedication of the newer building in December 1932, John A. Miller, a member of the school board, related that the structure bore the name of a man elected four times mayor of Louisville: "I don't think that the history of Louisville will show the name of a man who gave more service more unselfishly that that of Mr. Jacob" (Louisville Courier-Journal December 17, 1932, 1).
The architect of Jacobs Elementary School and the architect for the Louisville Board of Education, J. Meyrick Colley, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1914 with a degree in engineering. He received his Kentucky Architectural Registration October 2, 1930. As No. 15, he was in the second batch of registrants, the first four having become registered August 28, 1930 (Oberwarth, 252).
Colley joined a cadre of architects intent on establishing Art Deco as a prevalent architectural style in Louisville. The army's employment of the Art Deco in 1938 for a basic utilitarian structure, its Fort Knox water treatment plant, is evidence of just how popular and pervasive this Moderne style was in Kentucky. Besides Jacob Elementary, Mr. Colley designed the Moderne-styled Campbellsville School and Stadium. Mr. Colley designed at least a third school in the Art Deco tradition, Southern Junior High School (unsurveyed), now Frederick Law Olmsted Academy North, in Beechmont. This impressive three-story Art Deco building is a symmetric tripartite bay structure at the top of a steeply sloping site. A three-story central archway emphasizes the rhythmic undulations of the rest of the primary facade. A terraced and bermed landscape master plan was never realized.
Building Description
The Charles D. Jacob Elementary School (JF-SS-223) is a two-building complex consuming the eastern half of a city block in Louisville, Kentucky's Jacobs neighborhood, in the city's South End. It is located within a residential area, at 3670 Wheeler Avenue. The property consists of a school constructed in 1912 with Craftsman and Colonial Revival elements, and a larger second building, constructed in Moderne style, in 1932. The two buildings are connected by a small enclosed breezeway. Little on the exterior indicates physical change to the buildings after the 1930s.
The Jacob School comprises adjacent structures built in 1912 and 1932 respectively. The main floor of the two-story 1932 structure is elevated above the surrounding area. The back (west) side of the lot mainly is consumed by a concrete parking lot. The southwest portion of the lot has some grass, a small number of trees, and chain link fencing. The eastern side of the site has grass between the street and the school, and mature trees screen much of the view of the 1932 building.
The 1912 Jacob Elementary School is a two-story building on a raised basement. In size, it consumes less than 1/6 the space on the lot that the 1932 school takes. This earlier structure derives its design from the residential styles of the 'teens and '20s. It combines Craftsman details that were popularized on bungalow forms-wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafters-with elements from the Colonial Revival vocabulary, such as standing-seam metal roof, hipped low-pitch roof lines, and classical motifs in its front entrance. Every fourth course of the red brick facade alternates between red brick stretchers and dark headers, forming a pattern of the almost black header spaced at eight inches vertically and horizontally. There is a projecting belt course at the first-floor line comprised of a rowlock over a soldier. There is also a projecting rowlock course in line with the limestone second-floor window sills.
The main entrance of this brick building opens to the north, toward Camden Avenue. The entry is divided into a double Palladian motif: the wooden door frame consists of a door flanked by sidelights and topped by an arched transom; the wooden door sits within a large brick arch that repeats the Palladian arrangement with a 32-inch-deep two-course-thick elliptical masonry arch and is bracketed by brick pilasters with brick capitals. This main-entry side is divided into three structural bays: a slightly-projecting central section and two flanking wings. The windows on the central bay are mainly 4-over-1 double-hung wood sashes; on the wings, the basic window is a 6-over-2 double-hung wood sash. The central bay has six windows: one on each side of the entry, a pair of windows over the entry, and a window on each side of the paired second-story windows. The central bay rises to a parapet with a narrow stone coping; a small circular wooden vent is near the top. Each of the flanking bays has four windows per floor, or eight windows per bay. Those flanking bay walls rise to overhanging eaves that show their rafter tails. Four square windows light the basement space, and 9 concrete steps rise from the front walk to the front door.
The west side is relatively bare, and has secondary status in the architectural hierarchy. It has a simple double-door entry topped by a semi-circular transom divided into two lights. Above the door is a triple-hung window of 6-over-6-over-2 lights. At ground level is a six-light basement window. On this side one sees the brick breezeway constructed to connect the two buildings. It shows three pairs of 6-over-6 double-hung sash windows that light the corridor.
The east side of the 1912 building, facing Wheeler, was a less grand entrance than the north side, as seen by the simpler door, the more random placement of wall openings, and the variety of window types. Window types include paired 2-over-2 double-hung sashes, paired double-hung 4-over-2 sashes, a triple-hung 6-over-6-over-2 sash, and six-light windows at the basement level. The entry on this side is a double door, topped by an eight-light semi-circular-arch transom.
The south side contains many of the smaller windows seen on the east side: mainly 2-over-2 double-hung sashes as well as six-light windows for the basement level.
The 1912 structure was designed as a seven-classroom school. After construction of the 1932 addition, it was devoted mostly to community uses, but few classrooms there were much like those in the 1930s building. The 1912 building has a concrete basement for inside play. Doors are wood, some with six horizontally-oriented panels. The building retains its steam-heat radiators. The woodwork is plain, with quarter-rounds and baseboards and a similar horizontal board at waist height topped by a bullnose molding, with plaster in between, creating essentially a wainscot. Banks of fluorescent fixtures light the space, and the ceilings retain much, if not all, of their original height.
The larger of the two buildings is brick with generous amounts of limestone ornament, exhibiting the Art Deco architectural style as designed by Louisville architect J. Meyrick Colley. The 1932 building has an elongated and, from Wheeler Avenue, symmetric U-shaped plan, with the projections making the bars of the U formed by the gym/auditorium on the south end, and a kindergarten and playroom on the north end. Where the building has classrooms, it stands 2 stories tall; the gym-auditorium rises a tall single story; on the rear, the cafeteria also is a single story. At the rear of the school, the boiler room and coal bin floor is over seventeen feet below the school's first-floor level.
A limestone Art Deco cornice covers the front and auditorium/gymnasium sides of the building. This decoration is absent from the rear (west) side and from the north side, the one facing closest to the 1912 school building. Except for the gymnasium, the roofs all drain to copper conductor heads and downspouts on the rear of the building.
The monumental main entrance opens to the east, toward Wheeler Avenue. It is divided into three vertical units by unadorned limestone columns. Each unit contains paired eight-light wooden doors; above that is a ten-light transom; above that is a decorative spandrel, above that a 6-over-6 double-hung wood sash window. All three of these entry units rise to a limestone band that frames this entry, right below the decorative limestone cornice. A plaque bearing the name of the school is posted between the cornice and the limestone band. A pair of brick pilasters further enframes the entrance, stepped forward from the school's main wall plane. The carvings on the entrance and elsewhere on the school are quite varied, alternating between organic and geometric shapes of skillful execution. The un-windowed lower-level crawl space is faced with limestone.
The east side shows the building's most highly designed aspect, and consists in multiple bays that project or recede, to give the building great visual interest. The basic window unit on the building is a 9-over-9 double-hung wood sash, often in pairs or banks of three. This gives great light to the interior spaces. For instance, at the northernmost reach of the east side, a bay standing forward from the rest of the east side contains 18 windows, each one of which contains 18 glass panes.
The decorative elements are greatly reduced as the sides become less public. The south side, facing Strader Avenue, has limestone decorative elements, but is compositionally simple and broken into six bays, four with monumental windows comprised of 9-over-9 double-hung windows underneath a six-pane fixed sash light. The bay at the stage has a 9-over-9 double-hung window. The intermediate bay has no window. The bays are separated by brick pilasters capped with the carved limestone capitals typical of the school. The Wheeler Avenue east-facing entry to the gymnasium/auditorium is a projecting entry bay with three doors, each door separated by brick pilasters rising to carved limestone capitals. This entry projection rests upon a limestone pedestal that rises to the watertable level, and reaches forward with side walls the length of the landing in front of the doors, and the ten steps leading up to the landing. This entry projection is affixed to a plain brick wall, adorned by a broad brick pilaster at each corner, which rises from a plinth the height of the watertable, and then rises to limestone capitals carved with the geometric motif found across the building. The primary sides have a straight limestone cornice capping the wall.
The west side is the rear of the building, and with more of a service function, it shows variable amounts of decorative design choices. Because the side is so long, and because nothing interferes with a view of the entire side from Craig Avenue, to the west, its designer gave it a minimal amount of visual order. As the eye travels from north to south, which is from left to right, certain elements come into view: the breezeway connecting the two schools, with three sets of paired 6-over-6 double-hung windows; a run of five classroom bays, with each bay indicated by two stories and eight sets (four on each floor) of paired 6-over-6 double-hung windows; and at the far right, the projecting west side of the gym/auditorium. A number of ground-floor wooden doors, some with eight-light transoms, provide exits from this side. In front of the midpoint is the low boiler house, with five large windows, now grated over, and the tall octagonal brick chimney.
It features wide halls with terrazzo floors; classrooms with wooden or linoleum floors and high ceilings; and a spacious front lawn. A huge wooden-floored gymnasium at the building's southern end has a stage and doubles as an auditorium. Large rooms on the first and second floors of the north wing are probably the kindergarten and a playroom.
The building's front entrance opens into a spacious lobby and grand staircase. The floor of the lobby, all hallways, restrooms, and cafeteria are terrazzo. The classroom and gym floors are maple. The walls of the lobby, the hallways, the restrooms, and the kindergarten and playroom are glazed brick up to about five feet. In the gymnasium, glazed brick rises to over seven feet. The walls between the main hallway and the adjacent spaces are about three feet thick. This allows the classroom doors to fully open and not project into the hallway. This void in the walls provides space so that lockers are flush-mounted, back to back, in the hall and classroom. This void also allows air from the roof to circulate through the building, fed by a shaft in the boiler room and pushed by a large fan.
While the whole first floor is over a crawl space, the twelve-foot-wide central hallway is over a seven-foot-high piping and conduit space that also serves as distribution for the ventilation system. The steam heat radiators are intact. Much of the interior, such as doors, windows, and walls, appears to retain its historic materials and finishes. This building appears not to have used wood as trim boards to create a wainscot effect as is found in the 1912 building.
The only apparent architectural addition to the building since the 1932 addition was built is a 15' x 25' addition to the rear of the building, adjacent to the kitchen.
School from intersection of Wheeler and Strader Avenues facing north-northwest. Auditorium/gymnasium in foreground (2011)
School (1912 Building) West elevation, from intersection of Wheeler and Camden Avenues facing southwest (2011)
School (1912 Building) North elevation, facing southeast (2011)
School (1932 addition) West elevation, facing southeast (2011)
West elevation of North part of School (1912 and 1932 buildings), facing east (2011)
East elevation, main entrance, facing West from Wheeler Avenue (2011)
East elevation, main entrance, above second floor windows, facing west from Wheeler Avenue (2011)
East elevation, main entrance, above entrance doors, facing west from Wheeler Avenue (2011)
Typical cornice and pilaster capital, Southeast corner, North wing of 1932 building, facing northwest from Wheeler Avenue (2011)
