Before the present-day White Street School was built in 1904 across from Stratford Street, there was another White Street School. It was an mixed grade school, and it served the rural population in that area of the city. It was described in the 1900 City Report as having just a single school room -- in other words, it was a little old brick schoolhouse. It had 40 students and was heated only by a wood stove. The first teacher was Carol A. Moseley, in 1872, and in 1875 its teacher was Georgie A. Thayer.

The school operated on White Street, just before its intersection with Sumner Avenue, and served as a school until at least 1900. The building still exists today as the oldest schoolhouse in Springfield -- but for how much longer?

Of all the houses that have disappeared from Springfield, I am strangely drawn to the Elizabethan style house that once stood at 120 Sumner Ave.

I have four separate turn-of-the-century images of this house, the most I have seen of a single residential property other than the Wesson mansion or the Barney House. (And to think, I can't find a single early photo of my own house!)

This drawing is from American Architect and Building News, March 20, 1897:

What happened to the Magnolia Terrace lions?

I have come across many different photographs and drawings of two bronze lions that once graced the pedestals in front of Magnolia Terrace in the Forest Park Heights historic district.

Magnolia Lion

A while back I picked up a couple of photos of Forest Park. They were fairly nondescript - one was a picture of a couple of swans in a pond. But then I looked a little more closely, and was pleasantly surprised.

In order to get my daughter interested in history I try to make the past mysterious and exciting for her. One of my favorite teasers is about the "Lost Fountain of Forest Park".

The fountain still exists, although it's deteriorated and overgrown with brush. It's formally known as the Bowles Fountain. Beyond that, I don't know much else about it. Here's a picture of it from a publication called "Picturesque Springfield, Mass.", published in 1895:

More below the break.