Garfield Building

The Garfield School or Beard School has historical significance as one of the two nineteenth-century school buildings still in operation in the Detroit Public school system, and has architectural significance as an early work of Detroit architects Malcomson and Higginbotham, who specialized in the design of public school buildings from the 1890s to the 1920s. The area that the Garfield or Beard School serves was, until its annexation to the city of Detroit in 1906, a part of Springwells Township known as Woodmere, which had sprung up about Woodmere Cemetery (established in 1867) and the Woodmere station on the Toledo division of the Michigan Central Railroad. The site on which the present school stands was originally purchased for school purposes on August 21, 1886 by Springwells Township School District Number One for $2,000. Pupils in the school district attended classes in a store on Fort Street until September, 1886, when a four-room school was completed on the present site at Waterman Street near Fort Street.

The first school was called the Garfield School in honor of President Garfield. Mr. Gillespie was the first principal. He was followed by Mr.

Frederick Cockran, Mr. Lumley, and Mr. McClelland. In 1895, the four-room building became so overcrowded that it was declared unsafe.

In 1896, while Mr. George Berkaw was principal, the original building was torn down and replaced with a twelve-room, two-story, brick building. During the period of construction classes were held in a hotel at Fort Street and Radanacher. A rear addition was built in 1900, making fourteen rooms in all, with a capacity of 670 students.

The total cost of the school was about $46,000.00. In 1906, following the annexation of the area to the city of Detroit, the Detroit Board of Education, finding itself with two schools named 'Garfield,' renamed this school the Frank H. Beard School. The school was named in honor of Beard, the former director of the district school board.

Frank Herbert Beard was born in Detroit on December 29, 1862. He was the son of George Beard, born on March 6, 1814 near London, England, and Elizabeth Rainey Mackie, born on October 17, 1828 near Aberdeen, Scotland. Frank Beard's father kept a store on the corner of Woodward Avenue and Cadillac Square in downtown Detroit, but later moved out to a small farm on Fort Street in Springwells Township, four miles from Detroit City Hall. Here Frank grew up.

The Beard family became market gardeners, raising all kinds of vegetables, which were sold at the Detroit Market--at that time located on what is now Cadillac Square, extending two blocks from Woodward to Randolph Street. At fourteen years of age, Frank took over the marketing or selling end of things. This was no child's play. It entailed getting up at one or two o'clock A.M. in the summer time and driving a team to the market to get a good location; no spaces were rented then.

Later the Beards also became florists, which was Frank's occupation until the time of his death on March 20, 1905. Since childhood a resident of the area which had grown into the village of Woodmere, Frank H. Beard always took an active interest in local affairs. His father served on the school board in the little district, as director.

On his father's death, Frank was elected in his place. He was instrumental in the building of Garfield School. Frank H. Beard served as district school director for seventeen years, until the time of his death at the age of forty-two.

His younger brother, Edmund S. Beard, was then elected to the office and acted until Detroit annexed Springwells Township. The Garfield or Beard School is today significant as one of only two nineteenth-century school buildings in Detroit still in use for school purposes (the other is the 1895 McMillan School). It is also important in architectural terms as an early work of the Detroit architectural firm of Malcomson and Higginbotham, who specialized in the design of school buildings.

William G. Malcomson and William E. Higginbotham formed their partnership in 1890. In 1891 the Detroit Board of Education retained the firm on an annual basis to do all its architectural work.

The association between the board and Malcomson and Higginbotham continued for thirty years. During this time the firm designed two-thirds of the new public school buildings in the city, including the old Central High School (1896-97), now Old Main at Wayne State University, and Cass Technical and Commerce high schools (1917-20). Among the company's other important works are the master plan and first six buildings (1922-27) of the present University of Detroit campus. The Beard School is one of the oldest surviving school building designed by this prominent Detroit architectural firm which specialized in school building design.

The James A. Garfield or Frank H. Beard School, located in a residential neighborhood in southwest Detroit, is a roughly rectangular, two-story-plus basement, late Victorian, brick structure with a hip roof. The principal feature of the structure's symmetrical facade is a centrally positioned, partly projecting square, hip-roof, entrance tower with a deeply recessed, arched entrance-way in its base.

Beard School is a large two-story red brick building on a high basement. It is now painted gray. Symmetrical in arrangement, the front facade is organized into five bays. Its two end bays and central bay project outward while the other two recede.

The central, or entrance, bay extends upward through three stages culminating in an open bell tower with a pyramidal roof. Two limestone steps lead to a set of doors; a wide, stubby pier with a stone medieval capital flanks each side of the arched entrance. The capitals contain floral motifs and grotesque faces. The entry arch itself has brick voussoirs and a large keystone.

There is a round medallion in the spandrel panel on either side of the arch head. Above the main central motif, the arch, is a horizontal stone panel with the name 'Frank H. Beard School' carved into it. The cornice above is of pressed metal in an egg-and-dart pattern.

Semi-circular arched windows above the cornice have pronounced brick voussoirs. In terra cotta panels between the second and third stages of the tower are the inscriptions '1886,' the year that the first school was built on the site, and '1896,' the year that the building now on the site was erected. All windows on the facade are recessed in wooden frames and contain wood double-hung sash windows with transom windows above. The fenestration within the five bays of the front facade is rhythmically arranged; there are rows of four windows within the two outer bays, rows of three windows in the bays flanking the central bay, and two windows in the central entrance bay.

Continuous stone window-sill level bands, molded brickwork framing the windows, and molded brick belt courses between the first and second story unify the building horizontally. At the basement level, every fifth row of brick is raised and every other voussoir above the windows protrudes, resulting in a rusticated appearance. This treatment is carried up through the second story of the outer bays. The side elevations have similar moldings, continuous belt courses, and stone sills.

The rear of the building is plain; it contains no decorative brickwork, but does have stone sills. The roof of Beard School is comprised of a number of hips. On either side of the central tower is a steeply pitched dormer window, each containing an arched sash window. The gables have flared ends and are each crowned by a finial.

On the interior, Beard School is utilitarian in plan and appearance. The building contains fourteen classrooms: five classrooms per floor and four classrooms in the basement. Wainscotting along the walls and transoms above the tall doors off the wide hallways are the main architectural features of the interior. A rear addition was constructed in 1900, increasing the number of classrooms from twelve to fourteen.

Since then, little alteration has occurred to the exterior of the building. However, the original slate roof has been removed, the walls painted gray, and the school bell removed from the tower.