116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Franklin Middle School in Cedar Rapids marks centennial
The historic building was constructed by 144-year-old Cedar Rapids construction company Rinderknecht Associates
May. 24, 2024 2:03 pm
CEDAR RAPIDS — Dick Trotter taught social studies and coached wrestling to hundreds of students at Franklin Middle School between 1960 and 1995 when he retired.
Seeing the school again Thursday to celebrate the building’s 100 years reminded him of the “joy” he experienced in his career.
“I remember how to get along well with junior high kids,” Trotter said. “You say something silly to start the class, and they all laugh. Then you can give the lesson.”
“It was such a great career. I could not ever imagine doing anything else. Even to this day, I miss the day to day repartee with the kids in the classroom. I even thought about subbing a couple years ago, and I turned 90 last summer,” Trotter said.
Dozens of community members and former teachers and students toured Franklin Middle School, 300 20th Street NE, Cedar Rapids, Thursday to mark its centennial.
Franklin Middle School is the fifth school facility in the Cedar Rapids Community School District to celebrate 100 years while still being used as a school, said local historian Mark Stoffer Hunter. McKinley and Roosevelt middle schools opened in the fall of 1922, and are in their 102nd years of operating.
Wilson Middle School will reach its 100th anniversary in the fall of 2025, Stoffer Hunter said.
Franklin was a high school from 1935 to 1957, a junior high from 1957 to 1987 and has been a middle school since 1987.
The school was built by Rinderknecht Associates — at one time known as Stark Construction — a 144-year-old construction company in Cedar Rapids that also built McKinley, Roosevelt and Wilson.
Iowa prides itself in educating its youth who need “first-class buildings to learn in,” said Scott Friauf, CEO of Rinderknecht Associates. “Those buildings were meant to withstand 100 years of service and have met their goal. Rinderknecht was here in the beginning, and we’re still going to be here 100 years from now.”
Construction on Franklin Middle School began after a school bond referendum was approved by voters in the 1920s, Friauf said.
“When Franklin was built, it would have had 200 craftsmen on the project, from laborers, carpenters, cement finishers, brick masons — true professionals. It took labor to make that. In today’s world, technology has improved so much, we can build the first-class buildings with a fraction of the people,“ Friauf said.
Kerry DeYarman, former vice president of special projects at Rinderknecht Associates who is now retired, said the excavation of the school was likely done with a team of horses and a sled.
The floors at Franklin are “as good as new,” DeYarman said, and made of terrazzo, a type of flooring made with ground up marble chips. “The stair treads are a little worn because of 100 years of foot traffic, but they’ll last for another 100 years,” he said.
DeYarman’s father was born the year construction began on Franklin in 1922. “He lived two doors away from the school, and his mother took him as a baby in the spring of 1923 to watch the cornerstone being laid. He graduated (from the Cedar Rapids school district) class of 1941,” he said.
Leon Lueck, a former teacher at Franklin who also is a keeper of the school’s history, said constructing the school in the English Gothic architecture style — like Oxford and Cambridge universities in England — was an “amazing feat.”
Lueck congratulated the school’s maintenance staff over the years for the “marvelous” job they have done keeping the school so well maintained.
“These are important institutions, and the intent of the architect and school board at the time was to give the impression to the community and kids that education is important.” Lueck said.
Today, there are about 540 students at Franklin Middle School. The school has many services for its students, including community partners, a therapist, a peace facilitator to help resolve conflict, a barbershop and a food pantry.
“We offer a strong public education to our community, and that building has stood the test of time for 100 years,” said Christine Conover, president of the Franklin Middle School Parent Teacher Association. “As of right now the district’s plan is to continue using that building. Let’s celebrate where we’ve been and look forward to the next 100 years of public education in our community.”
Students in the gifted and talented program at Franklin helped lead tours of the school Thursday.
Tristina Marbury, 12, a seventh-grader at Franklin who was giving tours, said she learned about the school’s history in the weeks leading up to the centennial. “I didn’t think it was 100 years old. It makes me wonder about what it was like before I came here,” she said.
“The history I’ve clung onto is the support from the community,” said Kristina Dvorak, who teaches the gifted and talented program at Franklin. “When this building was built, the community was all-in. Families have continued to go to Franklin, to send their kids and their grandkids.”
Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com
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