Remember when Roosevelt Junior High School came down in 1968? The site has also held a high school and elementary school.

FOND DU LAC – Many schools have come and gone, though few have made such an impression — good or bad — as Roosevelt Junior High School.

It was best known as a junior high school when it was torn down, but the original building went up in 1873 to house the high school, according to The Reporter archives. It was built on the same site as the previous high school, which burned down in 1868, a year after its chapel collapsed.

The building eventually changed and expanded to accommodate the students, losing its bell tower and laying red brick over original stone. But as the student body continued to grow, the city built a new high school in 1922 — which would eventually become Goodrich High School.

Junior high school students moved into the old building, prompting the name change to Roosevelt Junior High School. An auditorium was added in 1925, hosting concerts, Christmas programs and other events for many years.

However, many people would come to know Roosevelt Junior High School not for its educational heyday, but for the state it fell in after the building showed its age and was condemned in 1958. The structural issues appeared to start in the 1920s and get worse in the 1930s: a 1967 Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter article blamed "settlement and cracking" on the large trees out front, whose roots soaked up the needed moisture.

With sagging walls and tilting floors from inadequate foundation, it was no longer fit for students, but a few rooms on the east side continued to be used for offices, and some still utilized the auditorium. The rest of the building became a target for vandals to use the windows as target practice.

Once celebrated throughout the state for its architecture, Roosevelt Junior High School was reduced to "Fond du Lac's most spectacular eyesore," according to archives.

"Yet it stands there, knees shaking and holes in its head," a 1967 article wrote of the building, "every structural bone aching and its guts seared, looking out through sunken eyes over Merrill Avenue just as the proud old 'High School' did back in 1973."

Many people in Fond du Lac wanted the building to come down before it fell or burned down on its own. Those who went inside noted it was stuck in time, cluttered with desks, chairs, blackboards that still held faint messages, and old photographs and other decorations that had faded in exposure to the elements.

However, the loss of Roosevelt Junior High School paved the way for a few new wins for the city.

Sabish and Woodworth middle schools, then still called junior high schools, were both built in 1962 after Roosevelt closed. R.B. Woodworth and Frank A. Sabish had both been principals of Roosevelt Junior High School and became namesakes for the two new schools.

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When wrecking crews finally razed the Roosevelt building in October 1968, the city made plans for a new elementary school.

The Rose B. Chegwin Elementary School opened in 1970, introducing a new classroom concept to the district where each classroom was actually three classrooms surrounding a media center. This way, three classes could be held at once, or students could gather for one large group instruction.

The new school brought in the students from Washington School, which closed for instruction the same year but stayed standing for a while longer, as the district needed the space, according to archives.

More history: It happened this week

• Aug. 29, 1968: About 225 freshmen attended their first day of college at the new Wisconsin State University Fond du Lac Branch Campus, registering for class, touring the school and otherwise getting oriented.

• Aug. 27, 1970: With the completion of Theisen Junior High School, the Fond du Lac School District announced new boundaries for the three total schools: students in the west side of the district would attend Sabish Junior High School, students in the east side would attend Woodworth Junior High School and students in the south side, including the towns of Taycheedah, Eden, Empire and Byron, would attend Theisen.

• Aug. 30, 1982: Faith Lutheran Church broke ground for a new school and gymnasium at the corner of Prairie Road and Maryearl Lane. Pastor Mark Schroeder, Principal Greg Thiesfeldt, congregation president Harold Hillmer, and members of the building committee and board of education turned the first shovelfuls of dirt.

• Aug. 26, 1991: More than 4,000 people toured the new Community Aquatic Center adjacent to Goodrich High School. Pool attendants sold more than 400 passes, and public swimming lessons were already almost full with more than two weeks left before they were slated to start.

"Remember when ..." is a bi-weekly column from Streetwise Reporter Daphne Lemke that looks back at businesses of Fond du Lac's storied past. Tell her what you'd like to see next by emailing [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Roosevelt Junior High School served Fond du Lac youth until 1958