Walk Along Main Street

Montrose

While today it might read “Montrose Elementary School” above the door, when the building first opened in 1922 it read “Bexley High School”. Before the Bexley Board of Education was founded in 1917, high school students were attending East High School. Junior high school students attended classes at nearby Main Street School, which was quickly becoming overcrowded. These factors led to a search for a site to build a new high school, and construction began in 1921. The new Bexley High School opened in September of 1922, and graduated its first class in 1923. Bexley Public Library was founded in 1924 and remained in the school until moving to their own building in 1929.

Most of the graduating classes in the 1920s consisted of 20 to 40 students. Bexley continued to grow, and more space was needed for the high school, as well as for an elementary school. The current high school building was constructed on Cassingham Avenue in 1933. In September, high school students began their school year in the new building, and the old high school became Montrose Elementary School.

This building has educated generations of Bexley residents for more than 90 years, and many people have fond memories of their time there. The building was renovated in the 1990s thanks to a bond issue passed in 1991. At the start of the 2014 school year, a new playground opened. The money to build it was raised by the parents of Montrose Elementary students

Photos Courtesy of Bexley Historical Society and Bexley Public Library

Sources:

“New playground opens at Montrose” This Week in Bexley, page 8A, August 14, 2014
Bexley Images by Edie Mae Herrel, page 39, 1978
“Montrose to celebrate 85th year on E. Main” by Ina Horwitz-Whitmore, This Week Bexley, pages A1 and A3, August 31, 2006
“Our Pictorial Past” by the Bexley Historical Society, Eastside Messenger, page 4, January 4, 1988.

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