History

Based on information provided by
Ed Zimmer, Historic Preservation Planner,
City of Lincoln

Hayward School has architectural significance, in part, from its status as the oldest surviving schoolhouse in the Lincoln Public School District. The building was named for U.S. Senator Monroe L. Hayward, a lawyer, farmer and stockraiser who died in 1899. Hayward was used as school until 1968 and had other public uses until 1982. In 1985, the building was sold and converted to condominiums.

A Time Capsule of Details

Architecturally, the school embodies, in nearly unaltered form, three distinct styles of public school architecture built over a relatively short period of time. The ornate original building - located in the center of the block-long structure - was designed in 1904 and employs especially fine terra cotta decoration of unusual late Renaissance or Baroque derivation. The 1913 addition at the south end eschews applied ornament for fine brickwork and restrained Classical and Romanesque motifs. Architecturally, it very consciously responds to the massing of the original building, developing a new and balanced composition with the tall auditorium pavilion as the new center. The 1925-1926 addition at the north end is unresponsive to the existing building. The very long addition is notable for Georgian Revival detailing on the new north entrance.

A Unique Role: Educating Beet Field Children

In the 1900s, there were about 4,000 German Russians in Lincoln, half of whom lived in the North Bottoms neighborhood. Many of these immigrants - adults and children - derived a major portion of their income by working in the sugar beet fields of central and western Nebraska.

Hayward was the principal Lincoln school that served the needs of these immigrant children. According to an early Lincoln Public Schools' historian, "In November of each year the 'beet field children' as they are called, return to Lincoln for the winter months and to attend school .six new school rooms are opened for them and special teachers are employed for them. Over 300 are in attendance during the winter months. They return to the beet fields the first of May."

The educational progress of the children posed a substantial challenge, when the regular school term in 1907 was three months longer than their stay in Lincoln. In 1924, the Scottsbluff Star-Herald reported the school district in Scottsbluff organized a special summer school for "beet field children" to enable them to re-enter classes following harvest "without embarrassment to themselves and almost nervous prostration on the part of the teacher"

North Bottoms is one of two neighborhoods originally settled by Germans from Russia, who came to the area when the land was owned by Burlington Railroad and was not yet part of the city of Lincoln. The Germans from Russia had a strong influence on the area. The neighborhood itself was shaped by these people, who built small houses on long, narrow lots in an imitation of Old World models.

One feature the emigrants brought with them from Russia was the "summer kitchen," which is a separate, smaller building situated close to the kitchen door of the main residence. In Russia, the summer kitchen was built to prevent fires, since the homes in Russia often had thatch roofs. These kitchens were built in Lincoln as well, even though they were no longer needed.(1) A couple of these buildings still exist; one at 1136 New Hampshire has been restored.(2)

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places is Hayward School, located at 9th and Charleston. Hayward school played a special role in the education of the neighborhood children, many of whom were known as "beet-field children." In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a large market for beet sugar, and the sugar beet industry of central and western Nebraska came to depend on Germans from Russia as a major source of seasonal labor. Burlington Railroad even ran Beet Field specials that transported entire families out west for the harvest season.(3)

One woman named Emma Engel, who lived at 1010 N 7th Street, was interviewed in 1980 about the beet fields. She remembered riding the train out to Scottsbluff: "We went out to Scottsbluff to Uncle Henry....Uncle Henry had fields of beets and we'd thin 'em out and crawl on our hands and knees. We had our knees padded, oh, they'd get sore."(4) Since beet-field children usually missed weeks of school, Lincoln Public Schools devised special programs at Hayward for them. These programs condensed the year's coursework into the available time..(5)

For a time, the North Bottoms neighborhood also contained three churches where the services were conducted exclusively in German. Even as late as 1927, a church was built at 1324 New Hampshire for an Evangelical German Lutheran congregation. This church, called St. John's, was built for a group that broke off from the original St. John's, located at 10th and New Hampshire. The original was constructed in 1907.(6)

Of course, as the younger generation of Germans from Russia left the area and assimilated into the larger society, the churches shifted their services to English. As the area began to lose its distinctively immigrant population, the churches began to diversify in step with the residents. St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church at 1324 New Hampshire was purchased in 1957 by a Latvian congregation, after the original German congregation had dwindled to ten people.(7) This building was just recently purchased by the Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in 2001. The original St. John's was demolished in the 1970s..(8)

The North Bottoms is now home to a number of students from the University, as well as families from a wide variety of backgrounds. While the neighborhood is no longer an isolated ethnic enclave, its "village" character is still very apparent due to the clear physical boundaries of the neighborhood. The area is hemmed in by natural and human-made borders, including Salt Creek to the North and I-180 to the west. The State Fairgrounds and UNL campus lie to the east and south.


Sources

1. Historic and Architectural Site Survey of Malone, Near South and South Salt Creek Neighborhoods, Lincoln Nebraska. (Lincoln: College of Architecture, 1974), 92.

2. City of Lincoln, Department of Urban Development. Area Focus Plan-North Bottoms. 2001.

3. Ed Zimmer, Historic Preservation Planner for the City of Lincoln.

4. Nebraska State Historical Society, transcript of interview with Emma Engel, 1981.

5. Ed Zimmer.

6. City of Lincoln, Area Focus Plan, 2001.

7. Junior League of Lincoln. An Architectural Album. (Lincoln: Jacob North Printing Co., Inc., 1979), 74.

8. City of Lincoln, Area Focus Plan, 2001.