March 2023
Not far from the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls, Ontario, is the former Lyons Creek Elementary School. Opened in 1955 at as two-room school, it saw the addition of two additional rooms in 1959.
The small school had a brief life, as declining enrolment throughout the 1960s resulted in the Niagara District School Board closing Lyons Creek Elementary. The students were sent to the newly built FJ Rutland school in nearby Chippawa for the 1970-71 school year.
The Lyons Creek building was retained as a community centre, but a fire the following year in one of the bathrooms damaged the interior of the building to such an extent, that repairing it was deemed not worth the money.
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- Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Lyons Creek Elementary School when open. Photo: Unknown.
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- Main entrance at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Looking down the hallway from the main entrance at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Looking down the hallway from the main entrance at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Main office at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Principal’s office at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Maintenance room at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Boys bathroom at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Girls bathroom at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Girls bathroom at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- The two original classrooms, with the hallway in between, at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- The two original classrooms, with the hallway in between, at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- One of the original classrooms at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- One of the original classrooms at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Looking towards the main entrance at Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- Looking towards the main entrance from the extension portion at Lyons Creek School, with a classroom to the left. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- One of the classrooms in the extension portion of Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- One of the classrooms in the extension portion of Lyons Creek Elementary School. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
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- One of the last classes at Lyons Creek Elementary school in 1969. Photo: Unknown.
The building was sold to a local farmer who, who used it for storage, with livestock pens surrounding the exterior.
By 2012, the property was up for sale again, but was still being used for storage. It remains abandoned and unused today. In the last couple of years, the interior was cleaned out, providing the first glimpse of what the abandoned school looked like before its transformation into an agricultural building for the first time in over 50 years.
Sources: (2) Facebook – “A Brief History of Lyons Creek Elementary” & Lyons Creek Elementary: A unique chance to explore a school closed for half a century – Thread – Urban Exploration Resource (uer.ca).
