While Capitol Heights was a new town, city leaders, including founder and first mayor J. S. Pinckard, donated land for an elementary school. The community partnered with the Montgomery County Board of Education to build the Capitol Heights Elementary School. The "progressive" brick building, designed by architect C. Frank Galliher, opened in the fall of 1917 and featured a courtyard and open air corridors. The school attracted national attention as the first unit of consolidation of the Montgomery County School System, operated the first school bus in that system, and was the first school completely examined by the first county-wide health unit in Alabama. For a few years the school was both an elementary and a junior high school, but returned to being an elementary school in 1929. The building was also used for performances and community meetings. Capitol Heights Elementary School burned to the ground on August 18, 1976. When the state could not rebuild because of acreage, the community requested the school board acquire more property; when their request was denied, residents sought to designate the area as a park. However, the city sold the land in 1978 to a real estate developer.
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