During the Depression years our Board of Education bore much criticism for the “extravagant castles” (Lanier and Capitol Heights JrHi) it had built during the Roaring Twenties. Ergo, even before WW II had started, a no-nonsense contractor, T L Bear, had been elected to the Board. Soon after the war ended, and the building boom was starting, he was made chairman. Under his leadership, a building formula quickly evolved, and for the next quarter-century, every elementary and junior-hi built in Montgomery County was required to follow that mandate. The 1950 recipe required a two-story, concrete frame, red brick, L-shaped structure with a one-story lunchroom-auditorium connected at the “L”. Windows were continuous, full height, push-out type that would allow a breeze in, and allow the expensive electric lights to be left off. Floors were quarry-tile in the corridors, and oiled oak strips in the classrooms. Morningview (above), built 1953, seems to have been the first school constructed under the new mandate. Bellengrath was a close second.

-Charles Humphries