Miss-Delectable
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 17,164
- Reaction score
- 5
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/11/new-school-for-deaf-dedicated-with-event.html
State government began providing for the education of deaf children on Oct. 16, 1829, when the state rented a small building at Broad and High streets for use as a school.
The school opened with three students. Enrollment increased to 10 by the end of the year, and there were 20 students at the start of the next term.
In 1834, the school year began in the institution’s own three-story building on 10 acres, about a half-mile east of the Statehouse. A wing was added in the mid-1840s.
By 1864, the need for a new building was apparent. State lawmakers authorized construction of a “ plain and substantial” building for 350 pupils. The cornerstone was laid Oct. 31, 1864.
The building, a Downtown landmark for more than a century at 408 E. Town St., was dedicated on Feb. 11, 1869. The entire building was illuminated for the event, which attracted 800 Columbus residents.
The Ohio State Journal reported: “An exhibition of pantomime succeeded in which several inmates of the institution acted stories while Mr. (Gilbert O.) Fay, the superintendent, interpreted for the audience. The chapel was densely crowded with spectators, and the exercises created much excitement and were really very perfect in their way and very entertaining.”
In 1953, the Ohio School for the Deaf moved to a 130-acre campus on Morse Road, where it remains today.
A succession of state agencies was housed in the Downtown building for several years. But by 1980, the building stood vacant and open to the elements. Homeless people are believed to have started the Aug. 7, 1980, fire that gutted the structure.
The ruins were razed, and the land, which the state bought for $300 in 1829, was converted into a city park. In 1992, a massive topiary was created there depicting Georges Seurat’s famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte.
State government began providing for the education of deaf children on Oct. 16, 1829, when the state rented a small building at Broad and High streets for use as a school.
The school opened with three students. Enrollment increased to 10 by the end of the year, and there were 20 students at the start of the next term.
In 1834, the school year began in the institution’s own three-story building on 10 acres, about a half-mile east of the Statehouse. A wing was added in the mid-1840s.
By 1864, the need for a new building was apparent. State lawmakers authorized construction of a “ plain and substantial” building for 350 pupils. The cornerstone was laid Oct. 31, 1864.
The building, a Downtown landmark for more than a century at 408 E. Town St., was dedicated on Feb. 11, 1869. The entire building was illuminated for the event, which attracted 800 Columbus residents.
The Ohio State Journal reported: “An exhibition of pantomime succeeded in which several inmates of the institution acted stories while Mr. (Gilbert O.) Fay, the superintendent, interpreted for the audience. The chapel was densely crowded with spectators, and the exercises created much excitement and were really very perfect in their way and very entertaining.”
In 1953, the Ohio School for the Deaf moved to a 130-acre campus on Morse Road, where it remains today.
A succession of state agencies was housed in the Downtown building for several years. But by 1980, the building stood vacant and open to the elements. Homeless people are believed to have started the Aug. 7, 1980, fire that gutted the structure.
The ruins were razed, and the land, which the state bought for $300 in 1829, was converted into a city park. In 1992, a massive topiary was created there depicting Georges Seurat’s famous painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte.