Southwood Elementary School is a public

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

, part of Columbus City Schools. The school building, located in the city's

Merion Village Columbus, the state capital and Ohio's largest city, has numerous neighborhoods within its city limits. Neighborhood names and boundaries are not officially defined. They may vary or change from time to time due to demographic and economic variable ...

neighborhood, was completed in 1894 and was designed by

David Riebel David Riebel (August 7, 1855 – July 29, 1935) was a German-American architect in Columbus, Ohio. He was the head architect for the Columbus public school district from 1893 to 1922. In 1915, ''The Ohio Architect, Engineer and Builder'' consider ...

. It was added to the Columbus Register of Historic Properties in 2002. The school opened on December 3, 1894. The first principal, Mary K. Esper, held the position from 1894 to 1923. The next principal, Elizabeth Jung, held the role from 1923 to 1930. During the 1995 school year, the school celebrated its 100-year anniversary with numerous events. In 2007, the building underwent renovations. During remodeling, workers removed chalkboards dating to the 1930s-1940s and uncovered chalkboards likely original to the building. A few had chalk murals, and the ''Columbus Dispatch'' reported at the time that they might be preserved as historical artifacts if the school district permitted it. The school building was the first designed by Riebel in Merion Village. It was built in the

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

style, and features a monumental central tower.https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/b3b87a7e-7aae-4775-92b9-3f9c07c07348/ It is nearly identical to the

Felton School The Felton School was a public school building in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, and a part of the Columbus Public School District. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and the Columbus Register of ...

, also designed by Riebel, built one year earlier, and demolished in 1990.

References

External links

* Columbus Register properties Public elementary schools in Ohio 1894 establishments in Ohio Buildings and structures completed in 1894 Schools in Columbus, Ohio {{ColumbusOH-struct-stub