In 1922, President Harding was popular—just about as popular as any president since Washington had ever been. He was a little less popular a few years later, after he had died and members of his circle who had not shot themselves began serving prison terms. But the name seems not to have been enough of an embarrassment to change the inscription on the school. It retains that inscription in its new life as a retirement home more than a century later.
The first school on this site was the old Chartiers Public School (we assume the date 1878 refers to the building of that school). In 1922, this much larger building went up around the old school—for it appears that the original school may still exist, invisible under a layer of 1922 construction.
The architect of the new school was Frank M. Crooks, the M. standing for McCandless, who was a lifelong resident of the little town of McDonald west of Carnegie.
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