The Second Building

Horace Mann Elementary School—formerly the first Lincoln School building—1961

The photo was taken after the building’s abandonment following the city’s closure of the Horace Mann school.

As Crawfordsville’s Black population moved to the city’s east side to work in the new factories, a second Lincoln School building was built on the corner of East Wabash Avenue and Pine Street in the “Eastend” neighborhood. The Crawfordsville School Board remodeled the first Lincoln School building and reopened it as the integrated Horace Mann Elementary School in 1922, which operated until 1961 and later demolished.

The second Lincoln School building opened in 1922. The Lincoln School closed its doors permanently at the end of the 1946-1947 school year, and many Black students began attending the recently-built Anna B. Wilson Elementary School down the street.