William Carr, circa 1950s.

A sketch of the 1916 William Carr School. Its design was distinctly more “modern” than schools built in the area earlier, such as Willard and Garfield.

William Carr School, on the northeast corner of 7th Street and 19th Avenue, in the 1950s. This elementary school was named after an early European settler, who by the mid nineteenth century had become a major landowner. In 1860 William Carr donated 1.05 acres of land at this intersection for a one-room school. Built in the same year, it became known as School District 1 of Township 17. Moline had expanded southwestward toward the school’s location, and in 1885 the school was turned over to the Moline School District, expanded to two rooms, and renamed the 7th Street School. In 1916 a new school, shown in this photo, was constructed at the site and named after Mr. Carr. It lasted until 1983 when it was displaced by commercial buildings, at what had become a very busy automobile intersection. William Carr students were dispersed to Hamilton and Lincoln-Irving Elementary Schools.

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