The Old Bloomington High School is a historic

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 ...

building at 510 E. Washington Street in Bloomington,

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 ...

. Opened in 1917, the building replaced another high school building from 1895, which was one of several buildings used for the local high school since its establishment in 1857; all of these older buildings have since been demolished. Bloomington architect Arthur L. Pillsbury designed the building in the

Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...

style, a variant on the popular

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style which, as its name suggests, was mainly used for large educational buildings. The building's design includes a large, detailed

Gothic arch A pointed arch, ogival arch, or Gothic arch is an arch with a pointed crown, whose two curving sides meet at a relatively sharp angle at the top of the arch. This architectural element was particularly important in Gothic architecture. The earlie ...

ed main entrance with towering

pier image:Brighton Pier, Brighton, East Sussex, England-2Oct2011 (1).jpg, Seaside pleasure pier in Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th century. A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of ...

s at each side, large windows with

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

surrounds, and projecting piers at the front corners and side entrances. In 1936–37, an addition funded by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

was added to the building; the addition was designed by Schaeffer & Hooten, a descendant of Pillsbury's firm, and matched the style of the original building. The building served as Bloomington's main high school until a new building opened in 1959. It then became a

junior high school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school ...

and remained so until it closed in 1990. The building 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 ...

on April 19, 2018.

References

National Register of Historic Places in McLean County, Illinois School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Public high schools in Illinois Gothic Revival architecture in Illinois School buildings completed in 1917 Buildings and structures in Bloomington–Normal 1917 establishments in Illinois {{McLeanCountyIL-NRHP-stub