I was hunting Hamilton Township schoolhouses three years ago when I came to the intersection of Logan Street and Lakeview Drive across the White River in Noblesville. A building I saw at the southwest corner looked like an old school! I barely had time to snap a photo through my windshield, but sure enough, the structure was once home to the Federal Hill schoolhouse.
The name Federal Hill comes from a ridge near the oldest part of Noblesville’s Riverview Hospital. The ridge -or hill, if you’d rather- runs through Forest Park until the ground regains its senses1. Before the Civil War, a pioneer named Luther Swain purchased the land and built a home. An admirer of composer Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home,” Swain named his farm after one owned by Foster’s cousin2.
The extant Federal Hill school opened in 19173 on the site of an apple orchard. The $5,423 building replaced an older, frame school built in the 1870s4 that stood at the top of Federal Hill at Westfield Road5. A thoroughly-modern structure at the time of its opening, the brick Federal Hill School featured domestic science and manual training rooms in the basement, and an assembly hall and classrooms on the first floor6.
Nevertheless, the Federal Hill area just west of downtown eventually outgrew the Federal Hill School. In 1961, the ten-classroom Forest Hill Elementary -its name a combination of Forest Park and Federal Hill7– opened to alleviate congestion. 337 students attended classes on the new building’s first day8.
Forest Hill Elementary School closed in 2012. Today, its predecessor is home to the ELAM Group, LLC, an environmental consultancy firm.
Sources Cited
1 Swift, F. (2020, December 30). Federal Hill named for Kentucky landmark. The Hamilton County Reporter [Noblesville]. Web. Retrieved July 5, 2025.
2 (See footnote 1).
3 Hunter, S. (2019, July 23). 150 years: Noblesville Schools to spend 2019-20 celebrating historic milestone. Current [Hamilton County]. Web. Retrieved July 5, 2025.
4 Federal Hill School Reunion Sunday (1981, April 29). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 12.
5 Recalls Early School History (1917, May 1). The Noblesville Ledger. p. 5.
6 (See footnote 4).
7 Jacobsen, E. (1987, November 12). Principal early for homecoming. The Noblesville Ledger. p. 1.
8 (See footnote 7).
