This east side school was named after Elizabeth Courville, a Detroit teacher and principal. Born in 1862, she was a product of Detroit schools herself before returning to teach for 26 years and serving as a principal for 18.
“She was a born teacher, one who truly loved her work and was devoted to it,” according to “Histories of the Public Schools of Detroit.” “She believed that the children and their interests should always be considered first, and her chief purpose in life was to bring this about and to make her pupils happy in their work.”
She taught at Hibbard and Bellevue schools before becoming principal of Van Dyke School for 13 years. When Monteith School opened in 1906, she became its principal.
On June 26, 1916, Courville was stepping off a streetcar near her home on Jefferson Avenue when she was struck and killed by a delivery truck. The principal's death was front page news in the Detroit Free Press the next morning.
"She was beloved by all the pupils of her schools in her 30 years of teaching," Wales C. Martindale, former Detroit schools superintendent, told the Free Press. "She was devoted to her work and always foremost among those working for the betterment of things educational."
When the Board of Education set out to build a new school to serve the city’s northeast side, it was announced May 26, 1921, that the Board of Education would name it in honor of Courville and her 34 years serving the district. The measure was formally approved Nov. 10, 1921.
The firm Malcomson, Higginbotham & Palmer was hired to design the new school, choosing the Collegiate Gothic style with gabled roofs and buff brick. The inside would see design more common to a university than an elementary school, with wood built-ins, Pewabic tile and fireplaces. Malcolmson, Higginbotham & Palmer also designed the Hosmer and Guyton schools according to the same plans, saving the district money while also giving it three ornate and beautiful buildings. Courville had a capacity of 500 pupils and cost about $140,000 to build, or about $2.8 million in 2026, when adjusted for inflation. Max Bartholomaei & Sons was the general contractor.
The school opened Jan. 2, 1923, with 12 rooms and an enrollment of 387 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Notably, the school did not have any large common spaces, such as a gym or auditorium when first built. This would soon change, as Detroit was in a population boom in the Roaring Twenties, growing from just under a million people in 1920 to 1.6 million 10 years later, a 60 percent increase. This led not only to Courville taking on seventh- and eighth-graders but to a 22-room addition being tacked onto Courville in February 1926 at a cost of about $293,000, or about $5.5 million in 2025. The new section added a double-decker gym and large auditorium, and more than doubled Courville’s size, giving it a capacity of 860 students. But even that would not be enough.
In 1929, another addition - this one with 14 rooms and additional space for 640 more pupils - was built for $183,000, the equivalent of $3.6 million in 2026. This new wing extended the building to the east along Lumpkin Avenue and gave the school a second double-level gym, an auditorium and other specialized rooms. On the outside, the addition complemented the earlier building in terms of style and color of brick.
Courville now was 83,400 square feet and had a total capacity of 2,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and 45 classrooms, an auditorium, and two double-level gyms. The upper level of the new gym served as a multipurpose lunch and playroom, and had a dedicated kitchen. A dumbwaiter was used to bring supplies to the second floor.
Conant Gardens: A center of Black wealth but also racism
Though Detroit was certainly more tolerant than the South during the 1920s, racism and discrimination were still rampant. Black Detroiters were not allowed to stay at certain hotels or eat in certain restaurants. There were separate hospitals and even YMCAs and YWCAs for Black and white patrons, and schools were segregated. But most impactfu were racial restrictions and covenants on housing developments that kept Black people from living in most Detroit neighborhoods. Conant Gardens was one of the only ones in the city without such deed restrictions. The land had once belonged to Shubael Conant, founder and first president of the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society, which had been founded April 26, 1837. The organization sought the abolition of slavery while seeking “the elevation of our colored brethren to their proper rank as men.” When he died in 1867, his will directed that “Blacks could purchase or build new homes on his southeastern Detroit property,” in line with the society’s mission.
Seeking to leave cramped quarters in neighborhoods like Black Bottom, and with more money in their pockets as more factories hired them, the neighborhood became a destination for many African Americans starting in the late 1920s. This made Conant Gardens a center of the Black middle class and wealth. By 1950, the neighborhood had the highest median income of any Black neighborhood in the city. But just a few streets over, things were not so equal.
Courville School sits just to the west of Conant Gardens’ neighborhood boundaries in Grixdale, and Nevada Street along the building’s south is the dividing line for Cadillac Heights. Neither Grixdale nor Cadillac Heights were welcoming to African Americans, and even though Conant Gardens youth could attend Courville, their families were restricted from living in the other two all-white neighborhoods next door.
In the fall of 1943, Collin J. Reynolds - a teacher at the Garfield School - and his wife bought the home at 17927 St. Aubin St., kitty corner from Courville, despite the restrictive covenant. That October, a white mob gathered in front of the Black couple’s house, seeking to intimidate them into moving out. This was nearly two decades after a series of racist mobs sought to do the same to several other Black couples who had moved into white neighborhoods, culminating in the Ossian Sweet case. Detroit police patrolled the neighborhood to keep the mobs at bay.
After the Reynoldses refused to move, the white residents met at Courville School to raise money for a court fight to evict the couple. In their court filing, they claimed “that the community is protected against Negro residents by restrictive covenant, part of which reads ‘none of said premises shall be used or occupied by people of the African race,” the Michigan Chronicle reported Nov. 13, 1943.
In a sign of the times, the case went all the way to the Michigan State Supreme Court, where in 1947, the justices forced the Reynoldses to move out of their home. Just a year later, the U.S. Supreme Court would decide that such racially restrictive housing covenants were in violation of the 14th Amendment. The Reynolds family triumphantly moved back into the house on St. Aubin.
In 1944, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt gave a radio address in Detroit and singled out the kids of Courville for their purchases of war bonds to aid in the country’s war effort. Several teachers at the school also enlisted in the armed forces.
Downhill
Courville would hit its peak student population of 1,809 in February 1953, when its seventh- and eighth-graders were transferred to Nolan and Cleveland junior highs. Even then, the school still had 1,630 pupils as of May 1961. This coincided with a nearby temporary public housing facility being demolished and replaced with new, single-family homes.
The school would continue to serve the east side for decades. In the 1990s, the Courville Concert Choir became an in-demand performance troupe and toured the country.
As Detroit entered the 21st century, Courville was still packed, with about 1,100 pupils enrolled. However, the cash-strapped district had a number of challenges to deal with, including the rise of charter schools starting in the mid-1990s and mounting repairs needed at many of its aging school buildings. By 2006, Courville had lost more than 500 students, nearly half its student body from just six years earlier. Meanwhile, the building had a leaking roof and needed new boilers. When coupled with the overall decline and loss of population in the northeast side neighborhood, Detroit Public Schools decided to close Courville in 2007.
In October 2014, Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration and Detroit Public Schools (DPS) announced a deal to wipe out $11.6 million in district debt in exchange for 57 vacant school buildings and 20 vacant lots. DPS was burdened by a $127 million deficit at the time. The City said it would secure or tear down the buildings and attempt to market the least-dangerous buildings for sale, but found few takers.
In 2020, an assessment estimated that it would take about $16 million to breathe new life into Courville. Given the challenges facing the neighborhood and the overall lack of demand and investment in the area, fears are mounting that Courville will be demolished - especially as it nears 20 years of being abandoned.