Lemont Central Grade School

Lemont, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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The Lemont Central Grade School, located at 410 McCarthy Road in Lemont, Illinois, is a Victorian limestone structure built in 1869 by architect John H. Barnes of Joliet. Constructed from locally quarried stone—a material central to the region's economy at the time—the building replaced Lemont's first school, established in 1836. As the city's population surged during construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in the 1890s, an annex was added in 1896 to handle increased enrollment. The school operated continuously until 1974, when structural safety concerns forced its closure; it was then the oldest continuously operating school in Illinois. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and has since been converted to condominiums.