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New Carlisle High School
History of New Carlisle Schools by Bill Berry
Education has always been paramount to the citizens of New Carlisle. From its earliest beginnings the village provided schools for their children.
In 1850 a Reverend Berger started a select school called Lafayette College giving more advanced course work to pupils. He operated the school for the next two years. In 1852 Reverend Thomas Harrison took over the operation. He, with the generous financial assistance of the people in the community, built the Linden Hill Academy located on an old Indian lookout directly south of the present New Carlisle School on Madison Street.
Linden Hill was very successful drawing student from the greater area around Clark County and from other states. The school continued into the 1860�s. The Civil War interrupted the activities of the school for about a year. It reopened again in 1864 and operated until 1869 as a private academy. That same year the New Carlisle School District purchased the building and organized a high school. The school was quite satisfactory and was patronized by students outside the district.
The district continued to operate this facility until it was torn down and a new structure erected on the same sit in 1885. During the construction students attended classes in the town hall. The new Linden Hill School opened in 1886. It was a large modern structure that even had a gym on the top floor, rather unusual for that day and time.
In 1919 state-building inspectors declared the Linden Hill building in need of major renovation and improvements if it was to remain open for students. The Board of Education, after determining the cost for renovating would be prohibitive and giving only temporary relief, decided that it would be in the best interest of the community to built a new school.
Shortly thereafter, the board began the task of convincing the community of the need for a new school. They subsequently passed a bond issue for the purpose of constructing a new school in August of 1919. It would be early 1920 before any construction took place.
In April of 1920 the board discovered they were going to need more money to complete the project. Once again they were forced to go back to the voters and ask for their support of an emergency bond issue and once again the voters approved the levy.
Finally, after two years of what must have been a very difficult time for both the board and the community the new Madison Street New Carlisle School was completed and opened to students in September of 1921.
With the opening of the New Carlisle school the fourth generation of school buildings commenced in Bethel Township. New buildings followed in Medway, Donnelsville, and Olive Branch over the next eight years.
With the exception of New Carlisle, these schools continue to provide educational services to our children into the ninth decade of their being built.
In 1982 the New Carlisle School was closed for basically the same reasons the Linden Hill School had closed some 60 years before. That is, the need for new heating boilers, major renovations and cosmetic improvements.
Today, the City of New Carlisle is the present owner of the Madison Street School. It is their hope to be able to retrofit and renovate the building into new city office facilities and a Community Center.
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| back to the History main page: | general historical outline by Bill Berry |
| Olive Branch High School: | history, alma mater, fight song, pics |
| Tecumseh High School: | history, alma mater, fight song, pics |
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