| Additional Information: | Elm Road to Racine Transmission Line Project - Stantec, Inc.
This WHPD record is duplicated with AHI 12463
This roughly 1.275-acre parcel includes the former Lamberton School with a circa 1976 addition, a detached garage built circa 1995, and surrounding grounds that include a parking lot. The front-gable schoolhouse is two-and-one-half stories tall and has an asphalt shingle roof. The north and south elevations are symmetrical, each having three, gable attic dormers above and in-line with three, gable dormers along the eave. The attic dormers, added sometime after 1975 per available photographs in the WHPD, are all above and in-line with three arched window openings along the first story. The east elevation has a fan window opening centered in the attic and an arched door opening fitted with an aluminum casement door with an aluminum transom window centered in the first story. The west elevation lacks the attic fan window and has a one-story, concrete block hyphen that connects to a metal-clad building addition further to the west (these additions are circa 1976 per historic aerial photographs). This shallow, side-gable addition has a vehicular garage door near its northwestern corner in the northern elevation. Above the hyphen, a vestigial hip roof clad with asphalt shingles suggests the former presence of an entry vestibule on this side of the main schoolhouse block. First and second story window openings are fitted with fixed, plate glass windows (metal or vinyl framed), while attic dormer windows are 1/1 types. The schoolhouse has a cream brick exterior arranged in a common bond pattern, with a brick water table and a stone foundation. A front gable, metal-clad detached garage is to the west of the schoolhouse additions.
William E. Lamberton settled in the northeastern portion of Caledonia Township, Racine County, in 1848. Lamberton found financial success through his investments in urban real estate as well as timberlands. His name appears on many parcels within Racine County as shown on the 1873 E. M. Harney Map of Racine & Kenosha Counties and the 1887 Illustrated Atlas of Racine and Kenosha Counties. This area of Caledonia Township came to be known as Lamberton, and both a post office and this schoolhouse bore the name.
A schoolhouse is not depicted on either the 1873 or 1887 maps. However, a schoolhouse is shown at the northeast corner of land belonging to J. Letterner in both the 1899 and 1908 copies of the Plat Book of Racine and Kenosha Counties and again on the same land belonging to J. Letterner on the 1915 Map of Racine County by Townships. Based on this information, a circa 1890 construction date is presumed. Little information on J. Letterner has been found aside of a brief mention of a farmer named John Letterner who was actively raising dairy cattle on his farm in Racine County in 1911.
The Lamberton post office ceased operations around 1915, and the Lamberton School was last used for classes in the 1960-61 schoolyear. The school district sold the lot and building to Fidelity Building and Land Development, Inc., in 1964. Changes include the concrete and metal building additions at the western side, the addition of gabled attic dormers, the replacement of all windows and doors, and the removal of a chimney, belfry, and one or more second story fire escape slides. Replacement brick in the second story of the western elevation, above the concrete block addition, matches the location of the fire escape slide.
Originally surveyed 1975. Roll 3B, image #21. The integrity of this former school has been badly affected by the removal of any entryway, the installation of the gabled dormers, replacement of the windows and the addition of the modern, one story addition to the rear. |
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