Kelvyn Park High School was named for the community and is one of the few schools in Chicago that is not named after a famous person.
Laughlin Falconer, (the elementary school at 3020 North Lamon in Chicago is named after him) came from Scotland in 1844 and settled in the Jefferson area in 1848. A settlement of immigrants from Scotland developed. They called the neighboring grove Kelvyn Grove in memory of Kelvin Grove, a lovely wooded area in Glasgow.
The original Kelvin Grove school property, which was at Cicero and Montana and originally in the town of Jefferson, was acquired on February 8, 1857. The deed stated "that a building shall forever be maintained and kept up as a free school for the said district upon said premises." This building operated as the Kelvin Grove school until 1911 [when it became a branch of Lloyd Elementary school.
In 1866, Samuel Snowden Hayes, a realtor, purchased a large farm in this community. In 1873-1875, he subdivided the land, which extended from Kostner to Cicero and Fullerton to Diversey, and called the subdivision "Kelvin." Mr. Hayes hoped to bring the State Industrial College to the area and laid out Hayes Boulevard (Wrightwood Avenue) as a beautiful parkway leading to the college. The school, which became the University of Illinois, was built instead in Urbana.
In 1886 residents and property owners of a square-mile section at the southeast corner of the Town of Jefferson petitioned to be annexed to the City of Chicago. The area, just northwest of Western and North Avenues, was
already effectively settled as an extension of the north side of the city. The rest of Jefferson joined the city of Chicago in the great annexations of 1889.
The building at Cicero and Montana was taken over by the Chicago Board of Education when Jefferson was annexed in 1889 and placed in the fourth group of grammar schools.
Many years passed and the area became an urban community. Additional educational facilities were needed. By 1917, a branch of the Nixon School, consisting of about twelve portables, was located on the south end of the present Kelvyn Park High School campus.
In addition to finding its way into the Chicago Public Schools, the name “Kelvin” earned a place in the science of thermodynamics. The “kelvin scale,” which measures extremes of hot and cold, takes its name from its inventor, Lord Kelvin. Lord Kelvin was born William Thomas, in Belfast, Ireland, on June 26, 1824. He, too, chose the name “Kelvin” in honor of the River Kelvin which flowed outside his office at the University of Glasgow. He died in Scotland on December 17, 1907. Although William Thomas did not become Lord Kelvin until 1892, years after Scottish immigrants named their Chicago community, his name is often associated with Kelvyn Park.
[By Sandra Trapp and Kelly Pucci]