08/28/2026
Soon after the incorporation of the Village of Oakwood in 1908, the citizens of Oakwood realized the necessity of establishing their own school. The first Board of Education members were elected that June and sworn into office by Harry E. Talbott, the Village’s first mayor.
In June of 1909, the board acquired a portion of land near the present-day intersection of W. Dixon and Harman Avenues through a $7,000 bond issue. This property included an existing building, once a barn converted into living quarters. The board converted the building into the first Oakwood Village School. It opened to its first students that same fall with 25 students.
The Green Barn, as it was referred to by parents and school children alike, contained two upper classrooms— one for first through fourth grades and the other for the fifth through eighth grades. The two classrooms could be combined by opening folding doors to allow for one large gathering space. Restrooms were located in the basement in former box stalls.
Miss Muriel Self taught the younger students and former student, Dean Miller, recalled her fondly, “We worshipped her and thought she was wonderful.”
The student population began to rapidly increase. To alleviate the overcrowding of the Green Barn, Col. Harry E. Mead offered a bungalow on his estate to house the first Kindergarten classes in 1911. Soon after, Katharine H. Talbott opened her third floor ballroom at her Runnymede estate to house some 20 of the youngest students. But Katharine apparently neglected to inform her husband, H.E. Talbott. He watched from his home office at Runnymede as he saw “one- two— three— and finally— twenty— small children walk solemnly across the front hall and file up the stairs.”
“You’d be surprised how quiet they are,” Katharine told him.
“I’ll be surprised all right,” her husband responded.
The children attended classes at Runnymede for the next 18 months.
Mabel Creager, the daughter of the Village’s Marshall, reminisced in her oral history, “I was very fortunate. I got to go there [Runnymede] for a couple of years. A chauffeur by the name of Harvey in a big Packard limousine would take groups of us right to our door on bad nights.”
In 1912, the esteemed architect, Louis Lott, was hired to design a new, permanent brick building on the same site as the Green Barn. Costs soon soared to nearly $20,000, and the difference was donated by an anonymous resident—rumored to be Oakwood resident, John. H. Patterson, founder of the National Cash Register Co.
The new school opened in 1913, but the student population continued to soar. In 1915 another election was held to fund the addition of an auditorium, gymnasium and library— and to add a playground. Dexter & McCure was hired as architects, and the famed Olmsted Brothers as the landscape designers.
In 1922, a $175,000 bond was approved by the Village for the “enlargement and modernization” of the school. This improvement, designed by the architectural firm of Schenck and Williams, includes, among many others, the now familiar front-facing colonnade, the courtyard— and a wading pool!
The Oakwood Village School is now known as Harman School. Oakwood Schools
