Editor’s note: Today’s column is the second of a two-part series about Dixon’s Castle High School. The first appeared in the June 21 editions of the Dixon Telegraph and Stirling Gazette.
In part one of this column, I documented the many battles and elections that were necessary to build Dixon High School in 1929. In this final column, I will reveal unique aspects of the building’s design, the ongoing struggle with overcrowding, and the 1929 leadership whose names are etched in DHS history.
Design Decisions
In 1927 and 1928, the Dickson Board of Education inspected many high school buildings within a 100-mile radius in search of a design for a new consolidated high school for north and south side residents. To determine the final design, the board selected the Urbana architectural firm Royer, Dainley & Smith, which has designed several buildings now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
When the architect’s plans for the new school building were made public in April 1928, The Telegraph commented that “the design gives the impression of a skyscraper rising directly from the riverbank; its skilful architectural treatment and unique design give it an impression of height and grandeur.”
Like Oxford and Cambridge
The exterior design is Gothic, described as “in the style used in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge universities”, with a central tower “providing further height” and emphasising the central academic unit of the building’s four units: lecture hall, gymnasium, classrooms and separate heating works.
The central academic section had on the first floor the departments for manual training, cooking and sewing, and agriculture, while the second floor contained the main library, a room with a stage for music and speeches, and a “merchant” department for typewriting, accounting, and clerical work.
The third floor was focused on science and laboratories, and art studios. The walls of the third floor hallway were used as art galleries. The fourth floor was used as a cafeteria that could accommodate 200-300 people. The auditorium seats 1,300 and the gymnasium seats 1,500, accommodating 200-300 people. The auditorium seats 1,300 and the gymnasium has portable seating that can accommodate 1,500 people.
But is it big enough?
Throughout the 1920s, school enrollment in Dickson grew steadily. In 1921, the city had 474 high school students, with 344 at South Dickson High School and 130 at North Dickson High School. By 1928, high school enrollment had increased 27 percent to 604, with 443 on the south side and 161 on the north side.
To accommodate the expected growth in enrollment, the new Dixon High School was designed to accommodate 800 students, but thanks to the purchase of a large seven-acre site, the building could easily be expanded.
At the last minute
Throughout 1929, while the new high school was under construction, no one foresaw the economic disaster that lay ahead. On October 24, 1929, now known as Black Thursday, the stock market crashed and the nation was plunged into the Great Depression.
In retrospect, the funding and construction of Dixon High School came just in time: just seven weeks after Black Thursday, the new high school opened on December 14, 1929. Had the school board delayed its school construction efforts, the district may have been stuck with two outdated and overcrowded high schools for another decade.
Memorial Mentor
The school, which opened in 1929, was blessed with some great educators who would later be memorialized. AC Bowers was the first athletic director at the new DHS, but eight years earlier he was the first coach at Dixon to use the athletic field that became the school’s campus. In 1963, a year after he retired, the School Committee renamed the field AC Bowers Field.
B.J. Fraser, principal of North Dixon High School, became vice principal at the new school in 1929 and later served as principal from 1932 to 1954. Fraser was well known to Ronald Reagan as his mentor and drama coach when Reagan attended the school from 1924 to 1928. The two maintained contact for decades until Fraser’s death in 1981 during Reagan’s presidency.
Allen Lancaster, principal of South Dixon High School since 1921, served as DHS’s first principal from 1929 to 1932. He then served as the district’s superintendent from 1932 to 1955. After his death in 1959, the School Committee named the just-completed Lancaster Gymnasium in his honor.
Overflowing
Enrollment grew rapidly after the school opened in 1929. Just five years later, in 1934, Dixon High School had a student population of 750. Student growth slowed during the Great Depression and war, but boomed again after the war.
By the fall of 1956, DHS was reaching capacity with 913 students in a building designed to seat 800. A citizen study committee recommended a new gymnasium on the west side of the building with a capacity of 3,000-3,500, a new north wing to house new Industrial Arts and Home Economics departments, a full cafeteria, new classrooms, and new choir and band rooms just north of the auditorium. These proposals were realized in the fall of 1959.
DHS’s student population reached an all-time high of 1,515 in the fall of 1972. However, enrollment began to steadily decline after the Baby Boomer era. By May 2024, enrollment was at 758, back to its size in the 1930s, 90 years earlier.
“An architectural treasure”
In 2016, the 87-year-old castle was in need of major renovations. In November 2016, the school board realized the cost of renovations would exceed the cost of building a new high school, so they asked voters if they wanted to build a new high school.
An overwhelming majority (59%) voted to renovate the existing high school. Jim Hay, a local dentist, lifelong resident and DHS alumnus, expressed what many were thinking: “I think the high school is an architectural treasure of our city. It’s the most beautiful high school in the state of Illinois.”
So, in response to the wishes of School District 170 taxpayers, the Board of Education embarked on a major effort to bring the Castle up to code and modern educational standards, and today, the fully renovated building once again stands in its proud historic spot overlooking the Rock River, ready for the future.
Tom Wadsworth, a Dixon native, is an author, speaker, and occasional historian. He holds a PhD in New Testament.
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