Schoolhouse Park Property History

Schoolhouse Park boundaries incorporate a number of historical parcels within the Village of Covington.  The Old Rudy Elevator property is located on the north of the park, and the middle of the park was the home to the High School and Middle School for many years.  

The photo above from 1954, courtesy of Paul Cromer, shows the park area on the left of the image, with the original school shown along Wall Street on the right.  The school along Wall Street in this location was occupied in 1896 and demolished in 1956.

From this period on, the village grew rapidly and as the population increased, the town expanded with it. In 1931, during the Great Depression, a new high school building (which can be seen in the photo above) was erected and equipped at a cost of $140,000, a sum which was stretched to the limit and necessitated buying secondhand equipment, such as the seats in the gymnasium, which were taken from May’s Opera House in Piqua.

This school was used as the High School from 1931 until 1974 and as the Middle School from 1975 until the building was demolished in 2016.  

Since 2016 the Village has worked to acquire all the parcels that now make up Schoolhouse Park.