Former School Building in Corunna MI

Corunna High School, Corunna Michigan

Date added: November 29, 2024

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The Corunna High School is the oldest remaining school building in the city of Corunna, Michigan. It housed all of Corunna's public school students, kindergarten through high school, from its completion in 1909 until 1952, when a new high school was built, and remained in use as a public school until 1976. It is one of the few known remaining public school buildings designed by prominent Lansing architect Edwyn A. Bowd, who designed many of Lansing's leading buildings from the 1890s to the 1930s.

In 1836 the Shiawassee County Seat Company sent their agent, Captain John Davids, to purchase a large tract of then densely forested land in Shiawassee County situated along the banks of the Shiawassee River. The company intended to establish a village that they hoped would become the county seat. Three commissioners designated by Michigan's first governor, Stevens T. Mason, recommended the site of Corunna as the first county seat, and Governor Mason confirmed their choice by proclamation on July 1^st, 1836. In 1840 the county formally designated Corunna as the county seat. The Shiawassee County Seat Company donated a 300-foot square block of land to Shiawassee County for a public square and county offices. In 1843 the first frame courthouse in Corunna was erected, which contained the county jail as well as all county offices.

In 1840 Corunna's first school, a private school, was taught in a log cabin owned by Uriah Dubious. In 1841 a public school was opened on the west side of Shiawassee Street, held in one of the county buildings used as the register's office. In 1842 the public school system was formally organized. They erected a one-room, one-story frame building on the already set aside schoolhouse square, which is the site of the present day Shiawassee Street School.

In 1851 the student population outgrew the one-room schoolhouse, and a larger school was constructed at a cost of $4,000. The former one-room schoolhouse was presumably moved offsite and was converted into a dwelling. The newly constructed school, centered on the school square property fronting South Shiawassee Street, was a two-story building of Greek Revival design with dark brick walls with light-color masonry accents and wood trim. The school had a gable front form, equally spaced double-hung windows, and a wooden cupola.

On July 1^st, 1856, the first train came to Corunna on the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, which had extended its line from Fenton through Corunna to Owosso. Corunna thrived and in 1858 was incorporated as a village. The business district then contained two grocery stores, two hotels, a dry goods store, a livery stable, six attorneys and two physicians' offices, a druggist, three boot makers, and one meat market. By 1864 the village had a population of about 1,500 and a flourishing trade. Corunna had a large flour mill, two iron foundries and machine shops, a woolen factory, fanning mill factory, fifteen stores, and numerous mechanical shops. Coal, clay, iron ore, and salt were mined about a mile outside the village, and the Shiawassee River provided ample water power. The village also had five churches, four public halls, and two lodges. In 1869 Corunna, which contained 3.26 square miles straddling the Shiawassee River, was made a city.

By 1866 the student population had again outgrown the schoolhouse. A new three-story brick schoolhouse was built on the northeast corner of the school square, just north of the existing school building, for $20,000. This three-story school was built in Victorian style, with tall, narrow, hooded, arched windows set in the brick facades. The hipped roof was low-pitched with a wide overhang, brackets at the building corners, and a lantern centered at the peak of the roof. In 1871 two persons graduated from Corunna High School. Both the 1851 and 1866 brick buildings were used until they burned in the fall of 1882.

In 1882 a new brick building replaced the two schools on the same site. The three-story school served kindergarten through twelfth-grade students. It was designed in the High Victorian style, with compact massing, gabled entrance with oversized trim along the rakes, cornice along the roof line, and quoins at all building corners. The windows were tall, narrow, hooded, arch-top double-hung. The mansard roof building had a bell tower. The school was considered "one of the most convenient and handsome edifices in this area of the state."

On April 14^th, 1908, the 1882 school burned. The remnants were condemned and the city ordered the charred remains to be torn down. The loss was totaled at $35,000 plus $2,500 contents. The building insurance money totaled $20,110.68.

The school board took swift action to relocate students. First grade classes were held in the southeast school annex, which was salvaged from the fire. Other grades were held in the common council room of the city hall, the Odd Fellows Building, and the Sloan and Baldwin buildings. High school was held in the Presbyterian church.

The school district started the process of rebuilding, retaining Edwyn A. Bowd of Lansing as the architect for the new school building. Bowd's plans called for a Georgian Revival building containing six classrooms for lower grades from Kindergarten through sixth grade, four classrooms for the high school and intermediate departments, two assembly rooms, one for the sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students and a second for the high school with a seating capacity of 125 pupils, and a library opening off the assembly room. The gymnasium and play rooms were located in the basement, to be fitted out later. However, it appears the gymnasium area was actually used for shop classes.

On May 28^th, 1908, a school district special meeting was held, and Corunna voters approved a $15,000 bond to rebuild, which was combined with $20,000 insurance money from the burned school building. On June 2^nd, 1908, bids were received for the construction of the new school house. On June 3^rd, the construction contract, complete except heating and plumbing, was awarded to Rickman and Sons, of Kalamazoo, for $26,000. Rickman also erected the Shiawassee County Courthouse, the Corunna Post Office, the Corunna Carnegie Library, and the State Savings Bank. The school was erected in 1908 at a cost of $35,110, and opened for class on January 5^th, 1909. This was the fifth school built on the site since 1842.

On June 11^th, 1908, the Corunna Journal published an illustration of the new school building, and noted the school board decided to omit the cupola. However, the Corunna Presbyterian Church donated their bell to the school upon the school's completion, resulting in the need for the cupola after all. The bell was cast in 1882 by the Clinton H. Meneely Bell Company of Troy, New York. The bell design was patented on May 3^rd, 1871. It was originally used as the church bell, but the church obtained a new bell in 1909 and thus offered the old for the school.

In 1901 thirteen students graduated, in 1910 twelve students, in 1914 thirteen students, in 1936 forty-five students, in 1937 thirty-eight students, and in 1940 forty students.

Until 1950 the entire Corunna public student population was housed in the single school building. But by then the population had outgrown the school, and portable classrooms on the school square were set up to house two grades. In 1952 the Corunna Public School district served over 700 students. A new ten-room high school located at 400 North Comstock Street was then built. In 1952 the former high school was renamed the "Shiawassee Street School." The lower story was then renovated to house elementary students, with the assembly room converted into two grade rooms, and the junior high classes were moved up to the former second floor, with the old high school assembly hall serving as classroom space. Kindergarten classes were located in the basement. The former shop rooms in the basement were remodeled into a kitchen and dining room, which daily served lunch to around 200 students. However, the existing building was still bursting at the seams after this reorganization, especially the junior high grades.

In 1955 the community passed a new $218,000 bond issue to address overcrowding. The funds were used for the construction of the four-classroom Louise Peacock Elementary School, located on the west side of the city at 485 East McArthur Street. The bond also enabled a combined gymnasium-auditorium addition to the high school.

In 1958 voters passed a $700,000 bond to provide more space to the rapidly growing school system. An elementary school, the Elsa Meyer Elementary School, modeled after the Louise Peacock Elementary School, was opened in October 1959, and was located on the east side of the city at 100 South Hastings Street. Elsa Meyer Elementary, which housed over 100 students, provided four classrooms, one each for kindergarten, second, and third grades, and special education.

In 1960 a high school addition provided space for the 200 seventh and eighth-grade Junior High students until then housed at the Shiawassee Street School. The combined Junior and Senior High student population totaled over 600. The addition, which created a capacity at the high school for 700 students, included: seven classrooms, a special education room, science and biology laboratories, general shop, administrative offices, a combination cafeteria/study hall, kitchen, arts and drafting room, a large community library, teacher's lounge, health room, band room with four soundproof practice rooms, guidance and counseling offices, new locker rooms, and increased storage and equipment spaces. In 1964 a swimming pool building was added.

In the 1960s, outlying township schools were consolidated, including Caledonia and Vernon. These schools were primarily one-room single-story schoolhouses, and began as early as 1846. Many of these schools continued to operate into the 1960s, and several schoolhouses are still standing today. In 1964 the annexation of twenty-one rural districts was complete. The Special Act of 1871 which had created the "Public Schools of the City of Corunna" was repealed and the school district became known as the Corunna Public School District.

The Nellie Reed School was constructed in the mid to late 1960s, and is located at 201 East Washington Street in Vernon. In 1974 a two-classroom expansion was added to Nellie Reed Elementary School.

From 1963 to 1972 the student population grew from 2,316 to 2,818, and it was expected to continue increasing in 1973. The student population exceeded the school district facilities' capacity by 800 students. The school board elected to run a split session for junior and senior high students to accommodate the overburdened facilities. At that time, the school board determined the Shiawassee Street School to be inadequate for classroom use.

In 1974, after rejecting a previous proposal in 1972, Corunna voters finally passed a $5 million bond to construct a new high school to address overcrowding. The Corunna High School is located at 417 East King Street and was completed in 1976. The former 1952 high school was converted into the Corunna Middle School, and currently houses sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.

In 1976 the Shiawassee Street School ceased being used for students, and became the home of Community Education courses and the Corunna Public Schools Administrative Offices. In the late 1970s, upgrades were made to the Shiawassee Street School, including a roof replacement and new windows. In 2000 the Shiawassee Street School was renovated to house a full-day preschool program, funded with a grant from the Michigan Department of Education. The Corunna Public Schools administration department moved out of the school and established office space nearby at 128 North Shiawassee Street.

In 2014 the Corunna School Board made a decision to "right size" the district to address a shrinking student population. In an effort to streamline services and reduce costs, the board voted to realign elementary schools by grade level, move some elementary students to the middle school, and move eighth-graders to the high school. At this time the board also voted to close the Shiawassee Street building, which needed renovations then estimated to cost $4 million. Child care services were moved to the Louise Peacock Elementary School, and the Shiawassee Street School was vacated in 2014. The building is being sold and will be renovated to contain apartments.

The Corunna High School was built in 1908 during the national patriotic movement and the State's push for school designs that promoted student welfare. Corunna School was designed in the Georgian Revival style using many distinguishing architectural features of the style, including: red brick, symmetrical plans and elevations, hipped roof, classical cornices, a projecting central portico entrance, and a bell tower. Closely spaced large operable windows were utilized for lighting and ventilation, stairs at each end of the building allowed safe egress, and the assembly halls encouraged communal gathering space for students.

Edwyn A. Bowd (1865-1940) was a prominent Lansing architect popular in the early twentieth century, and designed the 1908 Corunna High School. Bowd was born in Cheltenham, England, on November 11^th, 1865. He graduated from Orset College, Dover. In 1882 Bowd immigrated with his mother to Detroit, where he worked for the England-born architect Gordon W. Lloyd. In 1888 Bowd came to Lansing, where he became associated with William P. Appleyard. Appleyard was already considered a specialist in school design, and his article "Country School Houses, Second Paper" was published in the State of Michigan's Superintendent of Public Instruction 1882 annual report. Bowd bought out Appleyard in 1889. During that time Bowd also established himself as a specialist in educational architecture. In 1891 the Souvenir Edition of the Lansing State Republican reported, "Mr. Bowd makes a specialty of school work. He built the Fourth Ward school building in the city, the high school building at Fowlerville, and in company with Mr. W. P. Applegate [i.e. Appleyard], was awarded three first prizes for school buildings in competition at New York in 1888." In 1908 Bowd designed the Georgian Revival style Corunna High School, and in 1912 he designed Lansing's Genesee Street School, whose exterior is very similar to the Corunna High School.

Bowd was responsible for a number of Lansing's important civic and institutional buildings, as well as many of its churches. Among his early notable works were the First Baptist Church (1894), Lansing City Hall (1897), Plymouth Congregational Church (1900), and Lansing's Carnegie Library (1903). Bowd also worked extensively outside of the Lansing area, and received numerous commissions for public buildings throughout southern Michigan, designing courthouses for Ingham (1905), Montcalm (1910), and Wexford (1910) counties between 1900 and 1910, as well as the Ionia Armory (1909), Owosso Armory (1915), and Hillsdale City Hall (1913). Though some of Bowd's earliest major work was Richardsonian Romanesque in style, by the early twentieth century he had shifted largely to Neoclassicism. His Neoclassical work in Lansing includes several buildings at the Michigan School for the Blind (1912-1924), the Lewis Cass State Office Building (1921), and the Masonic Temple (1924) among many others. William Appleyard was a specialist in school design, and by 1891 Bowd also listed schools as a specialty. Bowd was appointed Architect of East Lansing's Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) in 1902 and designed a number of major buildings there. In the early twentieth century, he designed public school buildings for Corunna, Owosso, and other southern Michigan communities.

In the early twentieth century Bowd had his own firm until he entered into a partnership with Orla Munson in 1925. The firm of Bowd and Munson was incorporated in 1929. Bowd and Munson designed many of Lansing's principal civic, business, and public structures, including the 1937 J. W. Knapp Co. Department Store (now Knapp's Centre Building), the Ottawa Street Power Station (1940), and also Michigan State's Spartan Stadium (1957) in East Lansing. Bowd actively practiced architecture until his unexpected death on July 17^th, 1940, at the age of 74.

Building Description

Edwyn A. Bowd, a Lansing architect, designed the Corunna High School in the Georgian Revival style, and the building was constructed in 1908-09. The two-and-a-half-story building has reddish-brown sand brick walls with a limestone base. Limestone sill courses and window lintels and a painted metal architrave and cornice are used as accent architectural features. The building has a hip roof with broadly projecting eaves, and is topped with a cupola which holds the school bell. Every facade is designed using repetitive window bays of closely spaced windows separated by narrow brick piers. A slightly projecting, broken pediment portico is centered on the front facade. In the late 1970s, original windows were replaced with aluminum-framed windows and aluminum spandrel-panel transoms, and the original tile roofing was replaced with asphalt shingles.

The 320-feet by 300-feet Corunna school square is centrally located within the City of Corunna's seven-by-seven city-block grid. The school property is approximately 2.2 acres, and encompasses a full city block bounded by South Shiawassee Street to the east, State Street to the north, South Woodworth Street to the west, and West Oliver Street to the south. The school square is located at the south end of Corunna's central business district, which extends four blocks north along South Shiawassee Street to the Shiawassee River. The school is located three blocks south of the Shiawassee County Courthouse, the county clerk and sheriff offices, and the community district library. Professional business offices are located immediately across from the school property on South Shiawassee Street, and extend two blocks south along South Shiawassee Street. The school square is flanked by single-family residential to the east and west of South Shiawassee Street, including many historic turn-of-the-century-era houses.

The school is centered in the square, with the front facade facing east on South Shiawassee Street. A parking lot with about thirty-eight spaces is located at the northwest corner of the square, parallel with State Street. A playground is located on the west side of the school along South Woodward Street. A basketball court and sidewalk are located on the south side of the school toward West Oliver Street. A semi-circular sidewalk connects the northeast corner of the site to the front building entrance and extends back out to the southeast corner of the site. The front yard along South Shiawassee Street is lawn with several mature trees and building signage.

School commissioners hired Edwyn A. Bowd as the architect of the new school building. He designed the Corunna High School in the Georgian Revival style, and the building was constructed in 1908-09. The Corunna High School design bears many similarities with the Genessee Street School in Lansing, another Bowd-designed school built in 1912.

The two-and-a-half-story building has a six-foot-high limestone base. The facades are of reddish-brown sand brick. Limestone sill courses accentuate the first and second floors of the building, and limestone lintels accent the first-floor windows. A continuous, painted metal architrave runs above the second-floor windows. The building has a hip roof with a modillion-detailed metal classical cornice, and is topped with a wooden cupola that holds the school bell. The building has concrete and stone foundation walls, masonry load-bearing walls, and wood floor framing and roof rafters.

Every facade is designed using repetitive window bays of closely spaced windows separated by narrow brick piers. The windows of the basement, first, and second floors are vertically aligned in each bay. Each window bay originally contained a full-height, double-hung window set into the masonry at both the first and second floors, and a half-height, double-hung basement window set into the stone base. In the late 1970s, original windows were replaced with aluminum-framed windows and insulated aluminum spandrel-panel transoms, and the original tile roofing was replaced with asphalt shingles.

The first floor of the primary east facade is symmetrically arranged about a slightly projecting limestone portico building entrance, extending from the ground level to the bottom of the second-floor windows. The paired-door entrance has a tall transom above each door. The entrance and transoms are flanked by Tuscan order limestone half-columns supporting a simple entablature and broken pediment. Centered above the doors, within the broken pediment, is a limestone plaque with "CORUNNA HIGH SCHOOL" in capital letters.

Two groups of four window bays each are located on each side of the entrance. Each first-floor window group has a continuous limestone window sill connecting the four adjacent window bays, and each first-floor window has an individual limestone slab lintel. Three windows are centered above the first-floor entrance and match the adjacent windows. A continuous limestone belt course is located at the second-floor window sill level. A continuous painted metal architrave band is located above the second-floor window heads. A broader brick band above reads as a frieze and contains small limestone lozenge panels centered above all the windows. This is capped by a decorative metal classical cornice with modillions.

The height, building materials, and details of the west facade are consistent with the east facade. The center portion of the west facade originally housed the junior high and high school assembly room, and projects five feet out from the rest of the facade. The west facade is asymmetrical. One group of three window bays is to the north of the projection. Two groups of three window bays each are to the south of the projection. The projecting part of the facade has one group of three window bays at the north end, and a group with seven window bays fills the remainder of the projection elevation. First-floor man-doors with transoms and staircases are located at both the north and south ends of the center projection.

The north and south elevations are asymmetrical. On the north one, a ground-floor masonry archway is located just west of the building center. A pair of doors with sidelights and transoms is recessed in the archway. Directly above the archway, at the second floor, is a pair of windows, the sill of which extends beneath the second-floor stone window sill belt course. The heads of the windows aligns with the adjacent second-floor windows. One group of three window bays is to the west of the masonry arch. A single window and a group of four window bays is to the east of the masonry arch. The south elevation is a mirror image of the north elevation. The height, building materials, and details of the north and south facades are consistent with the east and west facades.

The hip roof was originally clad with red clay tile from the Detroit Roofing Tile Company, similar to the Shiawassee County Courthouse roof. Three small and low shed dormers were originally located across the front facade, but have since been removed. Currently, the roof is clad in asphalt shingles. A wooden cupola centrally located on the roof holds the school bell. The octagon-shaped cupola has eight Tuscan order columns; an eight-sided, domed cap; and louvered arch-top openings. The cupola is set on a low square base. The base is clad with painted wood shingles and trim, and is capped with a balustrade. A circular window is centered in the pediment. A fifteen-foot-high rectangular brick chimney rises from the northwest corner of the roof.

Originally, the building was designed with six classrooms for lower grades from kindergarten through sixth grade, and four classrooms for the high school and intermediate departments. The building also housed two restrooms; an intermediate assembly room on the first floor to accommodate sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade students; an assembly room on the second floor for the high school with a seating capacity of 125 pupils, and a library opening off the high school assembly room. A gymnasium and playrooms were to be fitted out in the basement at a later date.

By 1950 functions had evolved within the school building. Classrooms at the four building corners on the first floor housed kindergarten through third grade. The first-floor assembly room housed seventh and eighth-grade junior high students, and connected to a junior high room immediately to the north of the assembly room. The school office was on the north side of the first-floor main entrance stairs, and the student council room was on the south. The second floor provided a library, a typing room, and three classrooms along the east side of the building for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. The second-floor northwest classrooms and the smaller classrooms adjacent to the central assembly room housed senior high students grades nine through twelve. The southwest classroom was for math and the adjacent room was for overflow. The basement held shop rooms.

In 1952 high school students were moved out and the building was reorganized and renamed the "Shiawassee Street School." The first floor junior high assembly room was divided into two grade rooms, and the junior high classes were moved up to the former second floor high school assembly hall. Kindergarten students were located in the basement. The former shop rooms in the basement were remodeled into a kitchen and dining room.

From 1960 to 1976 Shiawassee Street School was used as an elementary school. From 1976 to 1999 the building was the home of Community Education courses and the Corunna Public Schools Administrative Offices. In 2000 the Corunna Public Schools administration department moved out of the school, and the Shiawassee Street School was renovated to house a full-day preschool program in the basement and first floor. In 2014 the daycare program moved out, and Shiawassee Street School was closed.

The school building essentially retains its original 1909 plan layout with the 1952 building alterations, which divided the first floor assembly room and converted the basement into a kitchen and dining room.

The two-and-a-half-story school building has a rectangular footprint, except for the shallow projection across the center of the back, and is approximately 125 feet long by 75 feet wide. The basement, first, and second floors each have a twelve-foot wide north-south corridor. The main corridor connects two stairwells and the secondary building entrances located at the north and south ends of the corridor. The primary building entrance is centered on the east facade, and connects perpendicular to the central north-to-south corridor. The broad, paired double-door front entrance opens into a very narrow landing and then to a broad staircase up to the main floor corridor, which is a half floor above grade. The north and south secondary entrances open onto stair landings at ground level, and then directly ahead into side-by-side staircases, one to the basement, the other to the main floor. From the main floor level at the north and south corridor ends, another stair flight runs up to the second floor directly above the basement stairs. The staircases all have wooden steps, and the side staircases have solid wood railings and newel posts.

The main corridor is flanked to the east and west by classrooms, offices, and assembly rooms. The corridor is offset to the east, providing about one-third of the building area to the east of the corridor and two-thirds to the west. Two classrooms are located at the northeast and southeast corners of the building. Narrow east-to-west corridors with coat hooks separate both corner classrooms from a smaller office flanking the south side of the east entrance stair and a restroom flanking the north side of the east entrance stair. The restroom was originally an office. Two approximately twelve-foot by fourteen-foot secondary corridors at the north and south halves of the west side of the building connect the west rooms to the main corridor. Two classrooms are located at the northwest and southwest corners of the building. The original assembly room is centered on the west side of the building, and has been divided in half by a north-to-south wall to create two large classrooms. Between the northwest corner classroom and a west central large classroom is a smaller classroom, which originally had a door directly connected to the assembly room, but is now filled in. Between the northeast corner classroom and the second west central large classroom is the boys' restroom.

The layout of the second floor is very similar to the first floor, with classrooms at the four building corners, a central large assembly room on the west side of the building, and small classrooms flanking either side of the assembly room. The second floor assembly room is not divided. Two second floor classrooms are located directly above the first floor east side office, entrance, and toilet room. Narrow boys' and girls' restrooms on the second floor are located at each end of the building, directly west of the north and south stairwells.

The basement is arranged similar to the first and second floors. Four classrooms are located along the west side of the corridor. A classroom and boys' restroom are located in the southwest corner of the building and mechanical and electrical rooms in the northwest corner. A one-story concrete block mechanical room addition is located near the northwest corner of the west side of the building, directly off the mechanical room. The basement space directly beneath the first and second floor assembly rooms was originally a wood shop, but was later converted into the school kitchen and cafeteria. The girls' restroom is adjacent to the south side of the kitchen.

The building retains much of its original finishes and plaster walls and ceilings. Original stained wood trim, including door frames, chair rails, and blackboard surrounds, and original doors and transom windows remain intact on the second floor, but have been painted on the first floor and basement. Most first and second floor classrooms, as well as the first floor corridors, have original wood floors. The second story wood floor in the corridor and the south stairwell have been coated with concrete topping. Acoustical tile ceilings have bene installed throughout the structure.