Cruft School
By Nathan Hawkins
Farrington’s Grove has a long relationship with public and private education. It began with a women’s college that operated out of the neighborhood in the mid-nineteenth century. By World War I, four public elementary schools were located in or adjacent to what is now the historic district. Later years saw consolidation, and today just Farrington Grove Elementary remains. A previous blog post discussed Hulman School. Here I explore the history of Cruft School, another neighborhood grade school.
The 16th District School, later known as Cruft, served students on the east side of Farrington’s Grove from 1889 to 1976. The school itself was located just a half-block east of the current historic district boundary, on the southeast corner of 8th & College.
At the corner of 8th and College, just east of the FGHD boundary, sits Oakley Park, a quiet neighborhood oasis with a few swings and a jungle gym. The playground equipment there is the only echo of the school that stood on the site for almost a century.
One hundred and thirty five years ago, the east side of what is now Farrington’s Grove was experiencing rapid development. The 16th school district was formed to cover this region, and in August 1889, construction of a new school building began. The Terre Haute Saturday Evening Mail reported that the school “will be of more modern design than any of the present [school] buildings.” The school cost $19,400 to build and contained 10 classrooms. It was furnished with a total of 400 desks, at $1.75 each. Ovid Lawrence took the helm as principal when the school opened on September 8th, 1890.
The new school was an elaborate example of the Victorian architectural styles then in vogue. The imposing, castle-like structure featured steeply-pitched roofs, towering chimneys and a distinctive round tower nestled in a corner.
All city schools received a proper name in 1906. The 16th District School was renamed in honor of Charles Cruft (1826-1883), a respected 19th-century Hautean and a veteran of the American Civil War. He owned much of the land that makes up the modern Farrington’s Grove neighborhood.
Terre Haute’s population more than doubled in the first decades of the 20th century. By the 1920s, the school was bursting at the seams, forcing some classes to be held in the attic! Bans were put in place on riding bicycles to school because there was no place to store them. To remedy these substandard accommodations, a large addition was added to the east side of Cruft. The new addition differed significantly from the original school. Rectangular and symmetrical in design, it included rows of tall windows to maximize natural light.
By the mid-1970s, Cruft school was nearly 90 years old. Ageing facilities were a chronic problem for the Vigo County School Corporation (VCSC) at the time; nearly all of its elementary and middle schools dated from the 1920s or earlier. Combined with declining enrollment, this led to system-wide redistricting and consolidation efforts in the late 20th century, when nearly all prewar schools were replaced with new buildings or closed permanently.
Cruft was among the first round of schools to be addressed under the plan. It shut its doors at the end of the 1976-77 school year, and the Cruft district was consolidated into those of Fairbanks, Crawford, and Sugar Grove. Following closure, county commissioners considered converting Cruft into an office building for the welfare department. This did not occur, and the school was razed in the fall of 1978.
Fire Station No. 2 was constructed next to the Cruft property in the 1980s. The school site, which is still owned by VCSC, is now Oakley Park, and a sign along College Street acknowledges the existence of the former school. After more than a century, the corner of 8th and College is still a destination for neighborhood children— a place to blow off steam, though, rather than sit in class.
Oakley Park, the site of Cruft Elementary School
Come back soon for a look at a sensational little controversy early in Cruft School’s history.
Newspaper Sources
All newspapers were accessed through Newspaper Archive, a service provided by the Vigo County Public Library.
Terre Haute Saturday Evening Mail. August 10, 1889, p. 5.
“Local Brevities.” Terre Haute Daily News. September 10, 1889.
Terre Haute Saturday Evening Mail. July 26, 1890, p. 5.
“Our School Teachers.” Terre Haute Daily News. September 6, 1890.
“Honors to Washington at the Sixteenth District School.” Terre Haute Semi-Weekly Express. February 23, 1897.
“Ban put on riding bicycles to school.” Terre Haute Saturday Spectator. November 11, 1922.
Crittenden, Susan. “Old Schools, Old Problems.” Terre Haute Spectator. November 15, 1975.
Perry, Wayne. “School board proposes Redistricting in City.” Terre Haute Tribune. February 10, 1977.
“Welfare Board Confirms Consideration of New Location.” Terre Haute Saturday Spectator. April 29, 1978.
Artwork by author