Facts & Figures

• The campus is 20 acres.
• College attendance averages 100 percent.
• Morgan Park Academy was founded as Mt. Vernon Military and Classical Academy in 1873. In 1877, it was renamed Morgan Park Military Academy and in 1890 became the Illinois Military Academy.
  
• In 1892, William Harper Rainey, first president of the University of Chicago, purchased the land and all operations of the Academy and renamed the school Morgan Park Academy of the University of Chicago. Its mission was to prepare students for entrance to the University of Chicago. At this time, the Academy was integrated, co-educational, and non-sectarian.
• In 1906, the University of Chicago and the Academy parted ways and the school reverted to an all-male military school. The Academy remained a military school until its last graduating class in 1959.
• During the Depression, the Academy created a junior college, and extended summer classes to students from the neighborhood.
• Girls were re-admitted to the Academy in the fall of 1959.
• Though football is no longer part of the Academy’s athletic program, it played an important part in the school’s history. Amos Alonzo Stagg, who coached at the University of Chicago, also coached at the Academy. In 1901, the Academy became the first Illinois school ever to travel outside the state to play a football game, playing University High School of Cleveland to a 0-0 tie.
• Three Academy alumni are members of the College Football Hall of Fame—Albert Benbrook, Jesse Harper, and Wallace Wade.
• The oldest building on campus is the gymnasium, dedicated in 1901 and designed by Dwight Perkins, a noted disciple of the Prairie School. The gymnasium was completely renovated in 2006 with the main gym restored to its original design.
  

• Three murals by Chicago artist Robert Church hang in Alumni Hall (pictured at left). Two of them were on exhibit at the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair.
• Approximately 1,500 Academy students have served our country during time of war and of those men, 66 lives were lost. The names of each person who died are read each year by current students on Veterans Day.
• Colonel Harry Abbells, chemistry teacher and superintendent of the Academy from 1898 through 1946, earned $700 when he started.
• Jones Bowl is named for Hayden Jones, who taught at the Academy from 1899 until his death in 1946.
• Hansen Hall, home of the Middle and Upper Schools, was originally a dormitory when it was built in 1927.
• Morgan Park Academy is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools.
• The Academy is accredited by the Independent School Association of the Central States.
• Our faculty members are active in the National Middle School Association.
• We participate in the Illinois High School Association, which oversees interscholastic athletic competition in Illinois.
• For more information about the local neighborhood, please visit the Beverly Area Planning Association.