Buffalo High School

About this property

Buffalo High School, also known as Independent School District #1 and Buffalo Elementary School, is an historic building located in Buffalo, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Buffalo was the first settlement in Scott County to incorporate in 1836. The first school building in the town was constructed three years later. The first school located at Fourth and Washington Streets was built in 1850. Ten years later Buffalo voted to become an independent school district. Buffalo Township was divided into seven independent school districts. The district that served the town of Buffalo was Independent School District #1. In 1865 they built a two-story frame school building on Fourth Street. By 1894 the town had grown to 500 people and the school building had become overcrowded. The school district hired Davenport architect Gustav Hanssen to design a new building. Plumbeck and Frandzen received the brick contract and likely used brick from the Davenport Paving Brick and Tile Company in Buffalo. Frank and Wrage did the carpentry work. The Knights of Pythias bought the old building and moved it to Third and Jefferson Streets. It remained standing into the 21st century. Opened in 1900 the new school building was a single-story, three-section, structure. It was capped with a hipped roof and had dormers for ventilation. The T-shaped building had a prominent gable-front entry vestibule and a belfry at the center. The building featured three classrooms, which was an increase from two in the previous building, and housed grades 1-8. Restrooms flanked the main entrance and a small office for the superintendent was located where the staircase is now situated. The school building was built for $5,000. The school educated students in eight grades until 1927 when the ninth grade was added in preparation for the addition of high school classes. That same year Davenport architect Arthur Ebeling presented plans for the addition of a second story to the school building. A bond issue of $20,000 was passed in January of the following year, and J.H. Hunzinger was hired as the general contractor. The rooms on the new second floor aligned with those on the first floor. An office was located over the main entrance. The lower grades were housed on the first floor. Grades 1 and 2 were located in the west classroom, grades 3 and 4 in the north classroom, and grades 5 and 6 in the east classroom. The second floor housed the upper grades. Grades 7 and 8 were located in the west classroom and grades 9 to 12 were all taught in the east classroom. A science lab and other specialized classes were housed in the north classroom. The basement was also used for classroom space. Home economics was taught in the east room, and mechanical training in the west room. The boiler room was under the north classrooms as it was previously.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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