The Osceola School, 1914 to its demolition

GRADES 1–4 ON A FOUR-ACRE SITE IN THE TOWN · JUDGED NEAR ITS END IN 1963 · GONE BY 2006

The Osceola School of the twentieth century is known whole from one document: the Ball State Teachers College study of November 25, 1963, which surveyed every building the new Penn-Harris-Madison corporation had inherited. Its entry deserves its weight: the school "houses grades 1 through 4 and is located on a 4 acre site in the town of Osceola. The original portion of the structure was erected in 1914 and additions were completed in 1922 and 1927. It is of brick construction… A total of 8 classrooms… two of them being below grade in the sub basement," and it "has only a limited number of years remaining before being removed from service." The study also fixes the school's place in the district's arithmetic: in 1962 the Osceola center — this building and its Moran companion — held 19 percent of the corporation's grades 1–8 enrollment, against Elm Road's 20, Kennedy's 38, Mary Frank–Harris's 14, and Madison's 9; the two Osceola buildings were administered together, the study noting the companion schools at each center were "administered by one principal in each center." The building's later course is thin in the record reached. The U.S. Geological Survey's place file keeps "Osceola Elementary School" as a named point in the town center (41.66449° N, 86.07500° W), distinct from Moran's point on Beech Road — a location clue, not a street address. And the South Bend Tribune, writing on "Osceola's growing pains" in 2006, records a resident, Kathy Bogart, who "attended Osceola Elementary School as did her grandfather, her father and her children. The school has since been demolished. But… Younger children now attend the newer Moran Elementary." So the building that taught four generations of one family was gone by 2006; its demolition date, its street address, what stands on its ground now, and the names of every principal who ran it were not found in the record reached. The address and demolition ride as GAP-OSSCH-2 and the principals as GAP-OSSCH-3, with their settlers: the corporation's board minutes and building files, and the county's property record for the site.

Sources:

1. Ball State Teachers College study (November 25, 1963): the Osceola School entry, quoted; the 1962 enrollment shares; the one-principal administration of the companion schools.
2. South Bend Tribune (2006), "Osceola's growing pains," via the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library catalog record: the Bogart family's four generations and the demolition.
3. U.S. Geological Survey place listings via TopoQuest: the Osceola Elementary School point, printed as a location clue only.