Benjamin Harrison School

Fifty years before the three-story brick schoolhouse was constructed on Steiner Avenue, Sedamsville’s students attended school in a building on lower Delhi Avenue. The original school house sat ten feet below grade. When the Ohio River flooded, the cellar of the school house would fill with water. Additionally, the placement of the school between the fire house and a swath of tenement buildings blocked the entry of daylight into the building. By 1892, the school board recognized that the dark, damp school house was no longer adequate for Sedamsville’s growing population. "The New Sedamsville Schoolhouse," began construction early in 1892 on a plot of land that the Board had purchased five years earlier. The three-story brick building with freestone trimmings contained 12 class rooms, a principles office, a library, and janitor’s quarters. Students could enter through any one of four entrances around the exterior of the building. Great care was taken to promote the new school house as a modern institution. Among its offerings were well ventilated (and heated) classrooms, artificial slate Blackboards, and fire proof walls. The Cincinnati Post described the new school in the following way: “The building presents a commanding and beautiful appearance. It is located on one of the most elevated sites in Sedamsville and can be seen for miles around.”