Farragut Career Academy

Farragut Career Academy High School is a public 4–year high school located in the Little Village neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. As a career academy, Farragut emphasizes a curriculum that combines academic instruction with work-study experiences and vocational training. In addition to Education-To-Careers clusters, Farragut is also home to the General Patton JROTC program, which functions as a school-within-a-school. The school's service area includes North Lawndale and South Lawndale. The original Farragut School opened its doors on September 4, 1894, as a new primary school. It was located on Spaulding Ave near 23rd Street in the South Lawndale neighborhood. Its 16 rooms accommodated 900 students. The Chicago Board of Education named the school after Admiral David Farragut and appointed George R. Plumb as principal. On the first day of school, Farragut enrolled about 500 students in grades 1–4."Back to the Books" 'Chicago Daily', September 5, 1894, Pg 12 Those 500 students were among 175,000 students enrolled in Chicago's 200 schools in a year that saw a 15% increase in enrollment. Farragut served as a primary school for thousands of neighborhood students in its early years. Two years after opening Farragut, Plumb officiated at a ceremony to dedicate an oil portrait of Admiral Farragut. The Farragut Post 602 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) presented this portrait to the school on June 26, 1896. The dedication ceremony included speeches by representatives of the Chicago Board of Education and the Grand Army of the Republic and the singing of "patriotic songs" by Farragut students. The portrait of Admiral Farragut still hangs in Farragut's south building. Farragut dismissed Plumb in 1901, replacing him with Mary E. Baker. In the early years of the 20th century, the population of Chicago's southwest side continued to grow, and overcrowding at Farragut became a problem. To ease this overcrowding, the Chicago Board of Education approved $150,000 to build a sixteen-room addition and assembly hall for Farragut.