Laserfiche WebLink
On the second floor was the art room, music room and staff rest <br />room. The library was located on the third floor along with a <br />librarian's room, a sewing room, two domestic science rooms, a <br />cafeteria and a suite of model housekeeping rooms for the <br />teaching of household arts. These rooms consisted of a dining <br />room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. The cafeteria was <br />constructed to accommodate two hundred and fifty at one time and <br />each day served from three to five hundred students and teachers. <br />Located in the basement under the gymnasium was the boiler room, <br />the fan ventilating system and the boy's gymnasium and locker <br />room.[4] Thus the new Southeast junior high school was built as a <br />spacious structure with modern facilities to accommodate the <br />needs of a growing student body. <br />By 1927, Southeast Junior High was renamed the James Whitcomb <br />Riley School. The change in the school's name coincided with the <br />celebration of the birthday anniversary of the eminent Hoosier <br />poet, James Whitcomb Riley. From October 1927, on the school was <br />referred to as the Riley School.[5] <br />In 1929, in order to better serve the needs of the students <br />living south of Ewing avenue and west of the seven hundred block, <br />there was a $100,000.00 addition made to the Riley School, thus <br />making it a Junior -Senior High school.[6] <br />THE TEN ROTARIANS <br />As stated above, ten members of the local rotary organization <br />were responsible for the conception and construction of Riley. <br />Those involved were: Superintendent of Schools W.W. Borden, who <br />first recognized the need of such a building; Dr. R.B. Dugdale, <br />president of the Board of Directors of the local schools, who <br />endorsed Borden's recommendation; Ennis R. Austin, who played a <br />leading role in designing the building; G.T. Nethercutt, <br />superintendent of construction once the plans were finalized; <br />H.G. Christman, member of the Christman Company, in charge of the <br />building project, assisted by J.F. Christman, a member of the <br />same company. The electrical work was done by Don McGregor, <br />representative of the Electric Service Company, and the lighting <br />fixtures were supplied by the George E. Wheelock company, who <br />were also Rotarians. The electrical fixtures were manufactured by <br />F.A. Clark and Emil Hawkinson, of the Western Electric <br />Company.[7] <br />From among the ten Rotarians, those that directly played the <br />leading roles in making James Whitcomb Riley school a reality <br />were W.W. Borden, Dr. R.B. Dugdale, architects Austin and his <br />partner, Shambleau, and builder -contractor H.G. Christman. Not <br />only were these individuals closely associated with the <br />conception, design and the actual construction of the school, but <br />they each had illustrious professional careers and held <br />noteworthy positions in South Bend society. It is therefore <br />historically appropriate to study them in some detail. <br />Walter W. Borden <br />Borden was Superintendent of city schools at South Bend beginning <br />in 1919 and was widely recognized for his expertise in school <br />2 <br />