Wheeling Was Warned: The 1921 Federal Blueprint for a New Lincoln School
Updated: Sep 22
Part One of a four-part series examining Lincoln School through the 1921 federal Educational Survey of Wheeling
Photo - original blueprint for Lincoln construction taken during research of my upcoming book on the history of the Colored School of Wheeling. Blueprints are housed at The West Virginia and Regional History Center (WVRHC) at West Virginia University which houses the official WVU Archives & Records and extensive manuscripts documenting the state's political, economic, and cultural history.
Part one of a four-part series examining Lincoln School through the 1921 federal Educational Survey of Wheeling
In 1921, Wheeling did not lack information about the condition of Lincoln School. It did not lack a professional plan for replacing it. According to federal investigators, the city did not even lack the financial capacity to act.
What followed was not an absence of warning, but a delay of more than two decades.
That conclusion emerges from an extraordinary government document: the United States Bureau of Education’s Educational Survey of Wheeling, West Virginia. Requested and funded by the Wheeling Board of School Commissioners, the survey provided an independent examination of the city’s public schools—including Lincoln School, Wheeling’s segregated elementary and high school for Black children.
The surveyors’ verdict was unmistakable:
Lincoln was an “old, inadequate building, placed inconveniently on a hill.”
They recommended abandoning it and constructing a modern replacement.
That recommendation was issued in 1921. Wheeling’s new Lincoln School would not open until 1943.
A City Invites Federal Scrutiny
On December 17, 1920, the president of Wheeling’s Board of School Commissioners contacted the United States Bureau of Education about conducting a comprehensive survey of the city’s schools. The board formally approved the arrangement on December 30 and appropriated $5,000 for the work.
A commission of federal officials and outside specialists was assembled. Its members brought expertise in school administration, finance, curriculum, architecture, health, home economics, industrial education, and elementary and secondary instruction.
Fieldwork began on January 17, 1921, and concluded on March 10. Collectively, the investigators devoted approximately 200 person-days to the project. They visited classrooms, inspected buildings, examined finances and records, evaluated teachers and curricula, and developed recommendations for reorganizing Wheeling’s educational system.
This was not a casual inspection. It was a professionally organized federal investigation requested by Wheeling’s own educational leadership.
The Old Lincoln School
The Lincoln School building examined by the surveyors had been constructed in 1893. It served both elementary and high-school students, giving it a broader responsibility than an ordinary elementary building.
Its condition, however, did not match that responsibility.
The survey identified a series of problems:
The basement needed cleaning and repairs.
The cold-air chamber and its door required attention.
The girls’ toilet lacked adequate light and ventilation.
The rear grounds needed to be drained and graveled.
Uncovered electric bulbs produced glare in the domestic-science room.
The forge needed better protection to prevent smoke and gas from reaching the rooms above.
Recent additions had reduced the natural light entering other rooms.
The building’s lighting was already described as “very bad.”
The heating system was insufficient during severe winter weather.
The heating problem was not presented merely as a matter of comfort. The investigators considered it a potential safety concern.
They also concluded that the building could no longer be responsibly enlarged:
“No further direct additions to this building should be made.”
If Lincoln needed additional space—and the investigators clearly believed that it did—the answer was not another poorly placed addition. A new school had to be constructed on another site.
A Complete Plan for a New Lincoln School
The federal commission did not stop at criticism. It created a detailed blueprint for Lincoln’s replacement.
Because Lincoln served both elementary and high-school students, the proposed building was to accommodate eight elementary classes and two high-school classes. The new school would also include:
A chemistry laboratory
A physics laboratory
A shop for boys
Two shops for girls
A drawing room
A music room
A library
A kindergarten
An auditorium
A gymnasium
Under the commission’s preferred work-study-play arrangement, the 16-unit building was estimated to cost approximately $256,000. Under a traditional classroom plan, the estimated cost was $352,000.
These figures demonstrate the scale of the federal recommendation. The commission was not proposing another modest annex or temporary repair. It envisioned a modern educational complex designed to serve Wheeling’s Black children from the earliest grades through high school.
The new Lincoln School completed in 1943 reportedly cost approximately $300,000—a nominal figure that falls between the two estimates offered in 1921. Because of inflation and possible differences in design and scope, the amounts should not be treated as directly equivalent. Nevertheless, the comparison is remarkable.
Much of the vision associated with the 1943 school had already been articulated 22 years earlier.
“Wheeling Can Afford” the Program
The most consequential section of the report addressed whether the city possessed the financial ability to carry out the proposed building program.
The investigators concluded that it did.
They placed Wheeling’s taxable wealth at $65 million and estimated that its full taxable value exceeded $93 million. Compared with other cities of similar population, Wheeling had invested less in school property than its wealth appeared to justify.
The report also found that the independent school district could issue bonds up to approximately $3.27 million. Only $120,000 in bonds remained outstanding, leaving more than $3 million in unused bonding capacity.
The conclusion was direct:
“There is no reason from a financial standpoint” that Wheeling could not provide modern educational facilities for all its children.
The investigators added an even stronger admonition: Wheeling could not afford not to provide those opportunities.
This finding changes the historical question.
The issue was not simply whether Wheeling knew that Lincoln needed replacement. Federal experts had placed that conclusion in writing.
The issue was not simply whether anyone had produced a practical plan. The report described the size, location, educational spaces, operating model, and estimated cost of a new Lincoln School.
The issue was not simply whether the city had sufficient borrowing capacity. The investigators concluded that it did.
The question that remains is why Wheeling’s Black children continued attending the old Lincoln School for another 22 years.
Neglect Across the System—but a Distinct Burden at Lincoln
The federal survey was deeply critical of Wheeling’s school system generally. It recommended abandoning several buildings serving white students and identified serious administrative, financial, and curricular deficiencies throughout the district.
Lincoln was therefore not the only neglected school.
Its position was nevertheless distinct. It was Wheeling’s only public school serving Black children, and it carried both elementary and high-school responsibilities. Its students could not simply transfer into the city’s white schools when its facilities became inadequate.
The survey’s financial table valued Lincoln’s property at approximately $29,500—the lowest valuation among the school properties listed—even though Lincoln served children across a much wider range of grades.
Segregation concentrated the consequences of delay within one community and one institution.
The Beginning of a 22-Year Story
The 1921 survey should be placed at the beginning of the long campaign for a new Lincoln School.
Five years later, newspaper accounts would again call attention to overcrowding and inadequate conditions. Additional appeals, proposals, delays, and changing plans would follow before the new building finally opened in 1943.
The federal report does not, by itself, explain every year of that delay. Future installments in this history must examine Board of Education minutes, bond proposals, appropriations, property questions, construction plans, and the advocacy of Lincoln’s educators, parents, alumni, and community organizations.
What the report does establish is equally important:
By 1921, Wheeling had been formally warned.
The inadequacy of Lincoln School was known. A replacement had been recommended. A sophisticated educational plan had been developed. The city’s financial capacity had been examined and affirmed.
The eventual opening of the new Lincoln School in 1943 was an important achievement worthy of celebration. But understanding that achievement requires us to remember the children who waited—and the generations who pressed the city to fulfill a need its own commissioned experts had recognized more than two decades earlier.
-T
Source and Research Notes
The principal source is the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Educational Survey of Wheeling, West Virginia, Bulletin No. 28 (1921).
The 1921 construction estimates and the reported cost of the 1943 building are nominal figures from different periods and should not be treated as inflation-adjusted equivalents.
Terminology Note
This post uses Black in the modern narrative. Historical racial terminology appears only when identifying the language or classifications used in the 1921 federal report.
