Churchville School, also known as Fischer School, is a former school building located in unincorporated

Bensenville Bensenville is a village located near O'Hare International Airport in DuPage County, Illinois, with a portion of the town in Cook County. As of the 2020 census, the village population was 18,813. First known as Tioga, it was formally established ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

History

Originally part of a schoolhouse for the original

settler A settler is a person who has human migration, migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a ...

s of Addison Township, the first known date of use was 1846. Designated into Illinois School District #3, the land that the school was built on was donated by August Fisher. Classes were routinely held in the building until 1931. An Evangelical Lutheran church and a school for German-speaking children were also built on the grounds, but both were destroyed in a 1924 fire.Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
/ref> The building continued to see usage as a meeting place for organizations such as the

Boy Scouts of America The Boy Scouts of America (BSA, colloquially the Boy Scouts) is one of the largest scouting organizations and one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with about 1.2 million youth participants. The BSA was founded i ...

, and served as a polling station. In order to continue to qualify as a member of District #3, classes were held once annually until 1950, when the ownership of the school reverted to the Fisher family. Renovations occurred over a two-year span starting in 1967, and a local historic society began giving occasional tours of the school. Later, Elmhurst School District #205 began to maintain the building and offered regular tours. In 1999, it was added to the list of the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. The ownership of the school was given to the town of Elmhurst in 2001.

Architecture

Churchville School is on the west side of Church Road north of Grand Avenue. It is a rectangular

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

building. The front-gabled roof (facing east) is covered with cedar shingles and features a small brick chimney on the west end. The east end has a square belfry tower with a bell-shaped roof. Wood brackets decorate the soffit of the tower's eaves. The belfry was probably added to the building at a later date, probably in the 1850s or 1860s. The vestibule at the front of the building was also probably added at that time. The belfry roof is covered with asphalt shingles. The bell is no longer hanging; it is instead on display at the foot of the belfry. The foundation of the building is limestone, set in irregular courses. The siding of the building is wooden clapboard. A two-step wooden landing leads to the main entrance to the vestibule. A three-panel window decorates the area above the door. The door is a modern six-panel wood door. A simple cornice adorns the soffits on the north and south eaves. Simple pilasters are found at the main building's corners. A diamond-shaped window is above the vestibule on the main building. The northern and southern elevations have four one-over-one windows with decorative wood cornices and sills. The windows are decorated to appear like twelve-over-twelve windows, a feature that was probably added during renovations in the 1960s.

References

{{reflist National Register of Historic Places in DuPage County, Illinois Bensenville, Illinois Buildings and structures in DuPage County, Illinois School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois