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1853 – present
Founded: Under Indiana's school law of 1852 the city's first school trustees — Hugh McCulloch, Charles Case and William Stewart — set up a public system with a population of about 4,000, a tuition fund of 300 dollars and no building. They rented Alexander McJunkin's house on the east side, on Lafayette Street between Wayne and Berry, and a second house on the west side. The first teachers were Mr. Mahurin and Mrs. Hulburd.
Course: The first free public school opened in September 1853, marked by a procession of pupils through the streets carrying a silk banner. On February 9, 1857 the system got its first real building: Clay School, a three-story brick school at Washington and Clay with 11 rooms and 495 seats. Jefferson School, at Griffith and Fairfield near Jefferson, stood by 1858. Clay School served until the end of the 1927–28 school year, when it was closed as unsafe.
Fate: FWCS is today the largest school district in Indiana; its present-day numbers and roster are in the Fort Wayne Today section, and its governance — the trustees, the 1889 board and its presidents — is in the Government section. This entry is the schools' own beginning; the superintendents who ran the system follow as their own entry.
Sources:
- Griswold-Phelps, Handbook of Fort Wayne (1913–14), via ACGSI — trustees, rented houses, first teachers.
- The History Center — first free public school, September 1853; Clay School, opened Feb. 9, 1857, closed 1927–28.
- Frank Gray, Journal Gazette, May 21, 2013.