Feehanville School

School District: 26

Grade levels: K-8

Built: First building 1882

Second building 1924

Is it still standing? No

If not, when was it demolished? First building demolished some time after 1924, the second building was demolished in 1984


The history of the Feehanville School goes back to 1882 when Archbishop Patrick Feehan purchased the River Bend Knott Farm with the intention of establishing a training school to house the children displaced or made orphans by the Great Chicago Fire. He soon opened Saint Mary’s Training School, which was later renamed Maryville Academy. As a part of this development a small one-room schoolhouse was built for the local farm children. This stood on River Road, in what is today part of the Cook County Forest Preserve. In 1895 the River Trails School District 26 was founded to operate the school. One teacher taught 5 to 10 students in all the grades. The responsibility for providing room and board for this schoolteacher fell on the neighboring farmers, generally the Runge family and the Piepenbrink family. When the forest preserve took over the land, the school was moved to 1400 Kensington Road. The original one-room schoolhouse was replaced in 1924 by a brick, two-room school. The original building was sold to a neighboring farmer. Although it is not clear when it was eventually demolished, one story is that it was moved and used it as a hen house. The two room building continued to be used until 1982, when the school was closed due to changing demographics. Today all that is left of the Feehanville School is the school bell which was rededicated in 1995 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the River Trails School District.


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