History of McColl Elementary School

McColl Elementary School was built in 1949 and opened in 1951. It was a series of smaller schools alongside others such as Weatherby, Kosciusko, and Healy built on the west side of Detroit as populations continued to grow throughout the 50s. McColl was named for Jay Robert McColl (1867–1936) the Dean of Engineering at the University of Detroit from 1911 to at least 1922. At 33,652 sf, McColl never received any additions and was a neighborhood school like the other schools built in the same general area discussed earlier. At the time of its construction McColl would have been built in a area of Detroit that was transitioning from semi rural residential housing to dense single family housing. Like many schools built in the 1950s Ribbon Windows, along with Steel construction and more, that would continue to be a hallmarks on school construction into the 60s. Into the 1990s, though enrollment was declining it wasn’t in the numbers that would be to come. The Franklin Park and Warrendale neighborhoods of Detroit located in the area around McColl had large populations of City Employees that kept the neighborhood largely intact. This was until 2000, when the Michigan Legislature passed a law ending the mandatory residency requirement for municipal workers, allowing them to live in the surrounding suburbs. This would start the large decline in the area around McColl as the last anchor residents of the neighborhood began to leave. Between 2000 and 2010 had lost over half of its student enrollment, and was closed the same year in 2010, but reopened as a charter school that lasted until 2012, when it was then bought by a church that used the property until around 2014. Since then vandals have scrapped nearly everything of value from the relativity small school including lockers and ceiling fixtures. Along with this evidence of fires is present in many spot of the school.