A few weeks ago upon one of my mainly aimless drives through Topeka I cam across an old art deco style abandoned elementary school. The name on the side of the school immediately caught my attention, Sumner Elementary.
Maybe it’s because I graduated from Sumner Academy in Kansas City, KS and the name made me take a special interest in this building or maybe it’s because of my obsession with the art deco style, which I get from my father.
Regardless of what it was it made me go back by the building when I was in Topeka yesterday to take some pictures of it. Upon doing so I left Topeka, came home and put the pictures on my Tumblr, then it went to Twitter and then I got a response.
I was directed to some history of the building which I had no concept of before.
This is what really caught my eye.
n 1935 the present two-story brick structure was erected at the rear of the old building and the old building razed. The new, elegant, art deco-styled building had 10 classrooms, industrial arts rooms, a kindergarten, clinic, teachers’ lounge, administrative offices, and an auditorium with a playroom beneath.
In 1954 Sumner School drew national attention in the Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka legal case. It was Linda Brown’s desire to attend Sumner School, in the neighborhood nearest her home.
Turns out this old abandoned school I stumbled across is part of one of our State’s defining moments and sitting only a few blocks from our State’s Capitol. Pretty cool, right?
It’s unfortunate that such an awesome building with so much history is just sitting empty, when it could be turned into anything, such as community center for that neighborhood.
I’ve been told that a California church currently owns the building and is “renovating” it , but so far said renovation seems to be limited to cutting the grass, putting up a fence and putting some boards over the doors while windows remain broken and the building remains empty.
Additional pictures can be found here.
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