A Piece of Dixon History: The historic distinctives of Dixon’s castle high school

Editor’s note: Today’s column is the second of a two-part series about Dixon’s castle high school. The first column was published in the June 21 editions of the Dixon Telegraph and Sterling Gazette.

In part one, this column chronicled the many battles and elections that were needed to build Dixon High School in 1929. This column reveals unique aspects of the building design, its ongoing struggle with overcrowding and its 1929 leaders whose names are etched in DHS history.

Determining the design

In 1927 and 1928 the Dixon school board visited many high school buildings within a 100 miles in search of a design for its new consolidated high school for northsiders and southsiders. To determine the final design, the board selected the Urbana architectural firm of Royer, Danely and Smith, which designed several buildings that now are on the National Register of Historic Places.

When the architectural drawing of the new school was released in April 1928, the Telegraph said the design “gives the impression of a tall building rising directly from the bank of the river. Skillful architectural treatment and unusual design have developed the appearance of height and grandeur.”

Like Oxford and Cambridge

The exterior design was described as Gothic, “the style used in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.” In the center is a tower “to further increase the feeling of height” and to emphasize the central academic unit of the structure’s four units: auditorium, gymnasium, classrooms and the separate heating plant.

The first floor of the central academic section included departments for manual training, cooking and sewing, and agriculture. The second floor included the main library, a room with a stage for music and public speaking, and the “commercial” department for typewriting, accounting and office practices.

The third floor focused on the sciences and laboratories, along with an art studio. The walls of the third floor corridor served as an art gallery. The fourth floor was reserved for a cafeteria capable of serving 200 to 300. The auditorium seated 1,300, while the gym could seat 1,500 with its portable bleachers.

But is it big enough?

Throughout the 1920s, school enrollment in Dixon steadily increased. In 1921, the city had 474 high school students, with 344 at South Dixon High and 130 at North Dixon High. By 1928, high school enrollment had increased 27% to 604 students, 443 on the south side and 161 on the north side.

To accommodate expected growth, the new Dixon High School was designed for 800 pupils. But thanks to the purchase of the large 7-acre plot of land, the building could easily be enlarged.

In the nick of time

Throughout 1929 when the new high school was under construction, no one realized the economic disaster that lay ahead. On Oct. 24, 1929, now known as Black Thursday, the stock market crashed, sending the nation into the Great Depression.

In retrospect, the funding and construction of Dixon High School arrived in the nick of time. The new high school opened on Dec. 14, 1929, only seven weeks after Black Thursday. If the school board had delayed its efforts to build the school, the district may have been trapped with two outdated and overcrowded high schools for another decade.

Memorialized mentors

That 1929 school was blessed with some remarkable educators who would later be memorialized. A. C. Bowers was the first athletic director at the new DHS. But eight years earlier he was Dixon’s first coach to use the athletic field, which became the site of the school. A year after he retired in 1963, the school board renamed the athletic field as A. C. Bowers Field.

B. J. Frazer, who had been principal at North Dixon High School, became the assistant principal at the new school in 1929 and then principal from 1932 to 1954. Frazer was famously known for being Ronald Reagan’s mentor and drama coach during Reagan’s high school years from 1924 to 1928. The two kept in touch for decades until Frazer died during Reagan’s presidency in 1981.

Allen Lancaster, who had been South Dixon High School principal since 1921, was the first principal of DHS from 1929 to 1932. He then served as district superintendent from 1932 to 1955. After he died in 1959, the school board named the just-completed Lancaster Gymnasium in his honor.

Bursting at the seams

After the school opened in 1929, enrollment quickly grew. In 1934, only five years later, the number of Dixon high schoolers reached 750. The growth slowed during the Depression and war years but surged again after World War II.

By fall 1956, DHS was bursting at the seams with 913 students in a building designed for 800. A Citizens Survey Committee recommended a new gym on the west side of the building that could seat 3,000 to 3,500, a new north wing to house new industrial arts and home economics departments, a full cafeteria, new classrooms and new choral and band rooms just north of the auditorium. These recommendations would become reality in fall 1959.

DHS enrollment reached its peak of 1,515 in fall 1972. But since those baby-boomer years, the student population began a steady decline. In May 2024, the school had 758 students, returning to its size in the 1930s, 90 years earlier.

‘An architectural treasure’

In 2016, the 87-year-old castle needed extensive work. In November 2016, the school board, realizing that the cost to renovate exceeded the cost of a new high school, asked the voters if they wanted a new high school.

A solid majority (59%) voted to renovate the existing high school. Jim Hey, a local dentist, lifelong resident and DHS graduate, expressed what many were thinking: “I feel the high school is an architectural treasure of this city. … It’s the most beautiful high school in Illinois.”

So, responding to the will of the taxpayers of District 170, the school board embarked on an extensive effort to bring the castle up to code and modern educational standards. Today, the fully renovated building stands ready for the future as it resumes its historic proud perch over the Rock River.

• Dixon native Tom Wadsworth is a writer, speaker and occasional historian. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament.