Naugatuck’s Salem School has been in the news recently. Just this past week, the Naugatuck Board of Education, facing a budget shortfall, voted to close the historic school, resulting in the circulation of a petition to save it. Salem School has been open since 1894. Previously, the Union Center School, built in 1852 and located on Naugatuck Green, had served the community. By the 1890s, the Borough of Naugatuck required a new and larger school building. The result was Salem School, the gift of John Howard Whittemore, a wealthy industrialist who wanted to enrich his hometown. He hired the nation’s leading architectural firm, McKim, Mead and White, to design the school, as well as many other prominent buildings in the center of Naugatuck. The old school on the Green was taken down and Salem School was built across Meadow Street in 1893 and opened the following year. The school served all grades until a separate High School building, also designed by McKim, Mead and White, was built in 1905. The Middle School grades were moved out in the 1950s. Salem School, named for “Salem Bridge,” an early name for Naugatuck, has continued since then as an elementary school, but is now slated to close. The future use of the building has not yet been determined.
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