The original Jefferson School at 702 E. Boulevard St. was completed in 1907. It was a modern two story eleven room brick building and cost $16,000. That building burned to the ground on the night of January 13, 1949.

Jefferson school students were transferred to the Logan Elementary school (by doubling class sizes to 45 students) and remained there until Jefferson was rebuilt and occupied for the first time in the fall of 1950.

When Jefferson was rebuilt, it was changed into a modern one-floor building. The school has since been expanded. In the 1970’s, the School for the Hearing Impaired was built on the same site, using federal and state funds. The late State Senator Gene Johns was instrumental in the Marion, Illinois location of the hearing impaired school.

(This information was obtained from A. C. (Cliff) Storme, Louis Fluck, and newspaper articles published by Violet Grisham and from the personal knowledge of Thomas Wimberly, in January, 2006; Edited by Sam Lattuca on 12/22/2012, some photos courtesy of Williamson County Historical Society)