🏫 The life and times of Simmons Elementary

In 1906, Simmons Elementary opened at 38th and Minnehaha to handle a crush of new students overwhelming the young school district's buildings. Over the years, the handsome school would face crowding, declining enrollment, closure, extended vacancy, and impassioned debate over how to reuse the building.

Sound familiar?

Today it stands as a stately apartment building, with a fire station tucked into its old schoolyard. Since the building turns 120 and the apartment complex turns 40 this year, this is as good a time as any to recount the building's history. And to be frank upfront: it's not an extraordinary story, really, but it's at least an interesting-enough tale of reuse amid the fluctuating fortunes of neighborhood schools. And it tells us something, maybe, about the range of options for similar buildings during another era of looming school closures.