Adams Elementary School

Adams began as Cook Hill School and was originally a white frame schoolhouse at what is now the northeast corner of 9th and Oliver.

In 1924, a new red brick schoolhouse was built at the northwest corner of 9th and Oliver.

In 1927 the school was annexed by the city of Wichita.

In 1929, the name Samuel Adams Elementary was selected by the Board of Education and Cook Hill was renamed in honor of an early day statesman from Massachusetts.

Samuel Adams was born September 27, 1722, in Boston, he graduated from Harvard College in 1740.  BY the 1760’s he was a well-known figure in the opposition to British control of the colonies.

While Adams did not participate in the Boston Tea Party, he was believed to be one of its planners.

He was also a member of the First Continental Congress, he and his second cousin, John Adams were some of the first people to call for a final separation from Britain and signers of the Declaration of Independence.  He would go on to serve as lieutenant governor and governor of Massachusetts, and even made a run for federal office but lost in 1796.

Adams suffered from a disorder that prevented him from writing in the final decade of his life. He died on October 2, 1803; he was 81.

He is interred at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.

The current Adams school building on North Oliver opened in 1948.  The modern building had 15 rooms. 

The old building, known as the “Little White House” was auctioned off in March of 1907 and converted into a grocery store and the home of W.T. Patterson.  According to the Wichita Eagle, the building burned to the ground on July 1, 1929.

In 2009, Adams began specializing in Economics or Entrepreneurship.  It’s one of a very few in the whole country.