Rural H Historic c Struct tural S Survey - Will County Land Use

Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
Schools
The first school in Florence Township was established in Henry Althouse’s house in the southwest
portion of the township. Classes were taught by a young lady employed by Althouse. Those enrolled
included Althouse’s children and a few neighbors’ children. A public school was officially established in
the winter of 1842–1843. There were six attendees of the so-called Florence Academy, of which Sarah
Fisher was the principal. In 1845, the attendance was up to twenty-four students, although classes were
still held in rooms of private homes. 80
The first permanent school building was constructed in Section 8 by Selah Morey in 1849 at a cost of
$250. As the population of the township grew during the 1850s and 1860s, the number of schools
increased to eight by 1877, with fourteen teachers serving 342 pupils. 81
By 1907, all eight schools remained open, but the population had declined, and there were only
171 pupils. 82 The township maintained eight separate one-room school districts as late as the 1920s. 83
There was some discussion of consolidation in the 1920s, but residents feared increased costs as well as
difficult logistics of transportation, so consolidation did not occur. 84 The eight one-room schools included
the Symerton school in the village; the Oak Grove school in Section 29; the White school in Section 34;
the Union school in Section 25; the Starr’s Grove school in Section 8; the Forsythe school in Section 4;
the Hayden School in Section 1, and Center School in Section 16. 85
The establishment of the Joliet Arsenal in 1940 greatly affected the schools of Florence Township. Four
of the one-room schools were located within the arsenal site (in Sections 1, 4, 8, and 16) and were closed
immediately and demolished. However, as part of the influx of population in the local area related to the
development of the arsenal, two new schools were constructed in summer 1943 with federal funding,
Brookside school and Northcrest school.
One of the remaining one-room schoolhouses, the Union school, closed in 1948, leaving only the
Symerton school in the village and the Oak Grove and White schools in operation, to serve a total
enrollment of 51 elementary students and 16 high school students.
In the 1950s, the three remaining Florence Township schools were consolidated into the Wilmington-
Lorenzo District 209U. This unified district covers an expansive geographic area that was served by
twenty-six separate school districts in the 1920s. By the 1960s, the district operated five elementary
schools (Central, Bruning, Brookside, Northcrest, and Lorenzo, all in Wilmington or Wesley townships)
and a combined middle school-high school. 86
80 Woodruff (1878), 579.
81 Farrington, 70–71; Woodruff (1878), 579.
82 Stevens (1907), 82.
83 Farrington, 134–135.
84 Maue (1928), 205.
85 Farrington, 231. The name of the school in Section 1 was provided by Mr. Merle Jones, who attended this school
from 1917 to 1925, during an interview by Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie on September 18, 2001. The name of
the Section 16 school was provided by Denise Issert of the Will County Historic Preservation Commission.
86 Farrington, 232–235.
Will County Rural Historic Structural Survey
Page 26 Florence Township