(photo from Vincennes Sun Commercial)
Good Samaritan plans to unveil a stone monument in honor of the previous location of the LaSalle Elementary School on the corner of Seventh and Barnett streets. The unveiling will take place on June 5 at noon.
The LaSalle Elementary School, named after the French explorer Sieur de La Salle, was built in 1927 to accommodate students in kindergarten through sixth grade. However, according to a Vincennes Sun-Commercial article published in December of 2015, LaSalle was not the first school at that Seventh and Barnett location. In the 1880s, the Frenchtown School was built and then in 1916 the name of the school was changed to Froebel School after the German educator Friedrich Froebel.
Because of low enrollment of students, the Vincennes Community School Corporation decided to close the school in April 1994. Four years later, Good Samaritan purchased the property for off-site storage and extra parking for employees.
In 2016, LaSalle Elementary School, along with Good Samaritan’s Memorial, Gibault and Willis buildings, were demolished as part of the BEACON project. During the demolition process, the hospital made sure to save architectural pieces of the buildings, including those found on the LaSalle building.
In honor of the history and memories made at LaSalle Elementary School, Good Samaritan commissioned to have a stone sign created out of the original masonry found on the building.
“We wanted to keep as many architectural pieces from the LaSalle building as we could,” said Rob McLin, President and CEO. “The sculpture created with new and old stone pieces looks amazing and will be a great reminder of the memories shared at LaSalle Elementary School by the entire community.”
An unveiling of the stonework will take place at 12 p.m. (noon) on Friday, June 5 at Good Samaritan on the corner of Seventh and Barnett streets. The community is invited to attend. The hospital asks that those that plan on attending remember to practice safe social distancing during the unveiling.