JeffersonElementary School

History

Historical Facts

Erected: 1910
Renovations/Additions: 1955
Sq. Footage: 105,114

Jefferson Elementary School began as a one-room brick schoolhouse built by the SalisburyTownship School District in 1858 on the north side of Auburn Street eastward from South 5th Street. The school expanded over the next half-century by virtue of a two-story four-room replacement building one block westward and a two-room addition. Allentown School District acquired the property in 1908. The district purchased a tract of land at the intersection of South 8th Street and St. John Street and built a two-story ten-room brick building and adjacent playground in 1910 – the building that became Jefferson Elementary School. 

Jefferson began its first academic year in September 1912. Charles E. Benfield served as Jefferson’s first principal until 1946, and since then, the school has had 10 principals, including Gene Capers, the district’s first African American principal.
Jefferson celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010-201