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Carver School, originally known as the 132nd Corliss Avenue School is located in the Altgeld Gardens Community on the far Southeast side of Chicago. The Altgeld Gardens Housing Project was engineered to be a healthy place for children to develop, thus the need for a school was borne. In Chicago as all urban industrial centers across the nation a severe housing crisis existed as a result of the migration of factory workers to the major cities. With the crisis at epic proportion a freeze was placed on the construction because of the war, The Chicago Housing Authorities’ (CHA) under the supervision of the U.S. Department of Federal Works developed a plan to alleviate the shortage of housing in urban area, while simultaneously satisfying the urgent need for affordable housing for the multitude of factory and steel mill war workers. The garden community was one of the first pilot projects to open in 1944.
The 132nd Street Corliss Avenue School opened its doors on September 05, 1944. The enrollment was approximately 13 students and rapidly increased to a population of 126. While the residents patiently awaited the completion of the school building, students attended classes in the row houses on 131st. Street, block #7. The first three buildings of the original school complex was completed and opened in 1944. A fourth building was added in 1945. Due to rapid growth, overcrowding caused apartments (in block #6) to be used again as classrooms. The student population increased to approximately 2,000 elementary and 350 high school students creating an urgent need for a new building. The original buildings (A, B, C, D) became the primary school when the high school/upper grade center (E Building) opened in 1950. Reportedly, elementary classes were held in the basement of the E building until the completion of the final building (F Building) circa 1954; this facility served the intermediate grade levels (4th, 5th, and 6th). The neat row townhouse style apartments were constructed in blocks, and numbered in the order in which they were planned and completed. The five digits classroom numbers were actually unit addresses and the block numbers were construction ordinals. The entire complex was renamed George Washington Carver School. The F Building was renamed Sir Isaac Newton Elementary School for a brief period of time. A new high school building was constructed in 1971 and called Carver Area High School. Carver Area High School is located behind block #12, near Interstate 94 Highway, bordering Beaubien Forest Preserve. As of 2001 Carver Area High School was reclassified, and now functions as Carver Military High School.
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