Joliet Township High School

About this property

Joliet Central High School is a public secondary school located in Joliet, Illinois. Central is part of Joliet Township High Schools, along with Joliet West and Joliet East (now defunct). Before the opening of Joliet East and West, the school was called Joliet Township High School. In 1993, when Joliet Central and Joliet West combined many of their athletic and other competitive extracurricular programs, the combined program took the old "Joliet Township" name. The original building was designed by architect Frank Shaver Allen in the "Collegiate Gothic" featuring arches, castellated walls, and towers. It was built in 1901 and expanded by the D. H. Burnham Company, in 1917, 1922, 1924, and 1931 which were built in similar style. It is built of locally quarried limestone. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The school is four stories tall, two city blocks long, and includes four separate buildings. The campus underwent a moderate expansion during 2005 when the old shop building was knocked down and a new building was erected in its place. A catwalk connects the main building to the T&I building and allows students to cross sheltered from inclement weather. The facilities include a daycare center, a planetarium, one soccer field, four baseball fields, a 1/16-mile indoor track and a 1/4-mile track across the street to the east. There is a historical display on the second floor near the South Entrance that is maintained by the Joliet Central Historical Society. Many archived items are kept in a vault; the display includes the original Steelman sculpture and conceptual models of it from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The Steelman was sculpted by Louise Lentz Woodruff and is positioned with its hands behind a male and female, symbolizing technology advancing humans. It is surrounded by the original relief panels representing the basic sciences: astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, medicine, and geology. It has long been considered good luck to rub the right knee of the male before any test or sporting events; therefore, the knee has been worn away and reconstituted over the years. After finishing a new parking lot in 2007, Central began constructing a Field House over the parking lot. In October 2008, the Field House was completed. In April 2016, Gilbane Building Company completed construction of a new 43,000 sq ft (4,000 m2) addition. The new structure, designed by Wight & Co., features a three-story glass curtainwall facade that leads a student center and cafeteria that can seat up to 600 people for events.

Location

Categories

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.

More in Will County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Will County.

More historic places in Illinois

Browse all historic places in Illinois.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Illinois history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.