Area 1 acre (0.40 ha) Architect Clausen & Burrows MPS Davenport MRA | Built 1904 Architectural style Colonial Revival | |
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Location 2104 W. 6th St.
Davenport, Iowa | ||
Buchanan School is one of four former grade school buildings located in Davenport, Iowa, United States that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The other three buildings are the former Jackson School, Pierce School No. 13 and Taylor School. The schools were built in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
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History
Buchanan School was built as School #14 in 1904 when J. B. Young was superintendent. Eight elementary schools were opened during his 30-year administration. Its name was changed to Buchanan four years after it opened. When the "6-3-3" system was adopted by Davenport schools around 1919 Buchanan continued serving its west end neighborhood as an elementary school. It continued in that capacity until 1940. The building sat vacant until 1951 when it was converted for use as a U.S. Naval Training Center. They continued to use the building until 1978 when it sat vacant again. In 1988 it was used for storage for an antique auto parts business. The building has subsequently been vacated again and has deteriorated. In 2014 a proposal was announced to convert the former school building into 18 senior apartments.
Architecture
The school building was designed by the Davenport architectural firm of Clausen & Burrows. It sits on a full city block that is irregularly shaped by the intersection of the city street grid and Telegraph Road that follows the lower line of the river bluffs at this point. The building's design combines the Colonial Revival and Renaissance Revival styles. The rectangular structure is two-stories high on a raised basement. It is built entirely with yellow bricks, however, the bricks on the lower level are laid in such a way as to suggest stone. The building features a hipped roof with bracketed eaves. The south elevation of the building has two entrances framed by round arches. The building has three different window styles. There are segmented windows on the basement level, rectangular windows on the main floor and round arch windows on the second floor.