The Greenfield School in West Allis, Wisconsin was built as a two-room school in 1887, but in an elegant

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style unusual for such buildings. It was added to 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 ...

in 2006.

History

The first settlers in the area arrived in the 1830s to form a community then called Honey Creek, named for 13 beehives along the stream. In 1835 they built a one-room log schoolhouse on the site of the current Greenfield School on land donated by Reuben Strong, starting out with seven students. In 1861 they replaced that log schoolhouse with a one-room red brick schoolhouse. With . In 1887 the red brick school was replaced by the current elaborate building. It was designed by Herman P. Schnetzky, a 1.5-story building with walls of load-bearing cream brick. Its style is Romanesque Revival, with hallmarks being the rough stone of the foundation and the round-arched windows and entry door. Also striking are the grouped windows in the gables, the

parapets A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Wher ...

on the gable ends, and the square bell tower with flared eaves. The new school had two classrooms instead of one. At this time, people were becoming aware of some of the shortcomings of one-room schools, and the two rooms let the teachers split the elementary grades by age to provide more age-appropriate instruction. Soon they split the rooms again to make four classrooms. A few years later, the school added a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

program, with the students studying physics, history, algebra, geometry, grammar,

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

, physiology, English history, the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

, arithmetic, and some studying bookkeeping and botany. The first high school students graduated in 1897. The building functioned as a school until 1923. After closing, it served as the School District Maintenance Department. Later it was used as a greenhouse, a Civil Defense office, and temporarily as offices of a hospital. About 1966 it was taken over by the West Allis Historical Society, restored, and put into use as the West Allis Historical Museum.

References

{{reflist

External links

West Allis Historical Society
School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Defunct schools in Wisconsin Schools in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Museums in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin School buildings completed in 1887 National Register of Historic Places in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin