A few hundred alumni, students, family and community members gathered Saturday at Evanston Township High School’s Lazier Field to celebrate 100 years of operation at the school’s Church and Dodge campus with a free carnival.
The day, decreed “Evanston Township High School’s Church and Dodge Campus Day” by Mayor Daniel Biss earlier this week, featured performances by the school’s marching band and color guard, class reunions and a number of family-friendly activities.
“It is with immense pride and gratitude that we reflect on the hundred years of excellence, growth and community spirit that have defined ETHS since this campus opened its doors in 1924,” said ETHS Superintendent Marcus Campbell. “The centennial celebration promises to be a time of reflection, reconnection and recommitment to our mission of providing a student-centered transformative education experience.”
Attendees could grab snacks from food trucks or free ice cream, dance along to a DJ’s music, get face paint and more. Volunteers passed out free keychains printed with an outline of the building. The marching band and color guard performed for the crowd, which occasionally rang out with cheers as old classmates reunited.
“I was involved, along with a lot of staff and a lot of administrators, in looking at an opportunity to celebrate 100 years at Church and Dodge,” said David Futransky, senior director of institutional events at ETHS. “This is the first of what will be several events to celebrate that milestone with alumni, current and retired faculty and staff, current students and the community,” he said.
Several ETHS reunion committees, including the Class of 1964, made the Centennial Carnival a centerpiece of their festivities. Posters and newspaper clippings reminded onlookers of the successes of the 1964 ETHS basketball team. That year the school made it to the Elite Eight statewide.
Chaired by Don Hall, the Class of ’64 reunion committee organized activities and gatherings throughout the weekend. Dozens of members of the Class of ’64 turned out for the centennial kickoff event.
Lillian Summers, also ETHS Class of ’64, traveled from her home in New York City.
“I came from Brooklyn, New York, for this reunion,” she said. “I’ve been to every single one,” adding that her friend and classmate, Harriet Washington (Quinn), has been with her each time.
“I’m having a great time,” Summers said. “We had a meet-and-greet at the Holiday Inn, Evanston on Friday. We’re here celebrating the centennial today, and we will be at Hackney’s this evening.”
Built with room to grow
ETHS’s current campus was built with the intention of growth – its original floor plans included sketched in drawings of the building’s “future expansion.”
The 1925-published Educational Buildings by Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton Architects, Chicago depicts these original building plans, alongside several historical shots of the new school.
“It will be seen at a glance that the Evanston, Ill. Township High School is planned not only to accommodate a large present attendance but to provide for future growth on a great scale,” the text under the floor plans reads.
The school had just opened its doors in 1924. It came on the heels of a rather arduous battle to decide its location, originally intended for Ridge Avenue between Lincoln Avenue and Grant Street.
Residents in south Evanston argued that the chosen location was too far north, and brought their complaints all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court. The resulting delay gave Superintendent Wilfred Beardsley time to consider other, bigger options with room for development.
“Beardsley later acknowledged he was glad of the delay because it showed he had been thinking too small. The 55-acre site on Dodge between Church and Lake was almost entirely open land (one account mentions onion fields), save for two greenhouses and a few houses along Lake Street,” writes Kris Hartzell, director of facilities, visitor services and collection at the Evanston History Center. Hartzell has also given talks on the school’s architect, Dwight Perkins.
“It was groundbreaking of him to include courtyards at a time when kids were just crammed into multistory buildings and expected to maybe play on a concrete yard once in a while,” she said.
The now 1.2 million-square-foot building educates thousands of students every year, and continues to expand its offerings. It is often credited with being the largest high school in the country by square footage under one roof, though Wikipedia says “this claim is uncertain.”
Most recently, the school opened the doors to Alumni Hall, a “dynamic, future-driven multipurpose learning space,” funded by gifts made to the ETHS Foundation.
Heidi Randhava contributed to this report.
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