McKinley School, listed on the National Register of Historic Places
McKinley School is a school building in Columbus, Indiana, constructed in 1892 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It features red brick walls, a limestone foundation, and distinctive large rounded arches at its entrances, with an addition from 1942 that added more classroom space.
The school was built in 1892 by architect Charles F. Sparrell as one of the first public schools to serve the city's growing population on the north side. It was renamed McKinley School between 1903 and 1915 to honor President William McKinley.
The school was named to honor President William McKinley after his assassination in 1901. For nearly a century, it served as a gathering place where generations of Columbus children learned and grew up together.
The building is located at the corner of Seventeenth Street and Home Avenue in Columbus and is easily visible from the street. Today it functions as apartments rather than a school, so interior access is limited, but the exterior Romanesque architecture remains fully viewable.
The building was designed by Charles F. Sparrell, a local architect who also shaped Columbus City Hall and influenced the Richardsonian Romanesque style across the region. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, making it one of the few intact school buildings from this era still standing in Indiana.
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