“Restore, Renew, Rediscover Your Historic Neighborhood Schools!”

3rd Annual Preservation Week 2002 Photo-Essay Competition

The land that Northside Elementary in Shelbyville, Kentucky is built on is famous for education. The location is close to Clear Creek on the north and goes up to Washington Street between Eight and Tenth Streets. Its address is 821 College Street. The street got its name from having so many colleges here on the Northside location.

In the early 1800's the Shelby College that was first called Shelbyville Acadmey was built on this location. In1850 the St. James Episcopal College was here. Between 1848 and 1850 a domed observatory was built on top of the college. The observatory was built in Munich, Germany. It cost $3,200. It was the fourth largest telescope in the United States at that time. The observatory also had a smaller movable telescope and a sidereal clock. The citizens of Shelbyville paid a $20 membership to the observatory. They could visit the college every Thursday and Friday nights for their lifetime. The observatory had many famous astronomers come from all the universities. Harvard University sent astronomers to Shelbyville to see the solar eclipse of 1869.

In the early 1900's a Northside building location became the Shelby Grade School. Students were from first to eighth grade here. Then in 1939 Shelby County built a new elementary school called Northside. At first students were here first through eighth grade. Later it was first through fifth. Now it is only fourth and fifth grades. It is called an intermediate school. There are very few schools like this in Kentucky.

Besides the observatory there is another thing famous from the St. James Episcopal College. In 1851 they bought a big bell from the G.W. Coffin Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. The bell was cast at the Buckeye Bell Foundry. All of this is written on the bell. It stayed at the Northside location until 1887 when it was moved to City Hall. It came back to Northside in 1960. It is tradition for fifth graders to ring the bell on the last day of their school year. When there was a grade school graduation for Northside students the bell ringing was a major part of their ceremony.

Soon, they say August of 2002 Northside will not be a school any more. There is a new school being built on Warrior Way which is off LaGrange Road also called Highway 53. It will not be called Northside anymore because it will sit next to West Middle School. It would be funny to called the elementary school next door, Northside. They named the school Painted Stone Elementary. I think it should be called Northside anyway. Schools are called strange things anyway, like Painted Stone why not Northside that sits next to West Middle?

I want someone to care about the old Northside building and the location it is on. A school has been here for over 200 years. Does anybody care??? It is close to downtown Shelbyville where there are nice buildings that were built a long time ago. New buildings do not add all the nice trim that they did long ago. Northside is only one street away from our beautiful library. Kids would love to go to school close to a nice library. Did you know we have a famous library?

Instead of tearing Northside down they should make it into help classes for kids who have problems. It is a good location. The students could walk to many nice places. Also everything in walking distance is educational. It would be really, really bad if this location does not continue being a school. I think before you bulldoze this someone should listen to people who care about historical things.

This essay and photograph(s) are the property of Preservation Kentucky, Inc. and Kentucky Heritage Council and that any use of the photo or essay must be approved by PK and KHC.