Chicago Westcott Vocational HS “Wolverines”

The History of Chicago Westcott Vocational High SchoolChicago (population 2.8 million) is located in far northeastern Illinois in the center of Cook County. Lake Michigan (one of the “Great Lakes”) serves as Chicago’s eastern border. Chicago is one of the largest cities in the United States and boasts of several museums making it a fantastic place to visit for history buffs. It is also home to several professional sports teams, most noteably the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, and White Sox.Chicago has strived to provide a good education for its children. High schools have been built in Chicago since the early 1850s.  In addtion to the many high schools have been established over the years are those which have went through name changes and identity makeovers. One of these such schools was Wescott High School.Wescott High School was the predecessor to the current and very well-known Simeon High School. A history of Wescott High School and, ultimately, Simeon High School can be found on the Simeon Career Academy High Schoool website address of http://simeonca.org/about/history.jsp. A brief summary of this page is as follows:

Westcott Vocational High School (named after Oliver Spink Westcott, a well-known former principal and administrator in the Chicago school system) was established in a school building at 8023 South Normal Avenue. The building had formally served as Calumet High School and Vocational High School until 1946. In 1948 the first high school students began classes in the building which was now known as Westcott Continuation School. A year later, the school was established as Chicago Westcott Vocational High School as the need for vocational education opportunities for boys and girls alike was realized.

This arrangement continued through 1962 when students from the all-girls vocational school called Princeton were moved into the Westcott building, and the boys were moved to the Tilden High School building. In 1963 the city of Chicago “bought” a warehouse building located at 8235 S. Vincennes from the Kroger company for a cost of $1. The building was renovated and made available for occupancy in December of that year. The entire building was ready for both male and female students in the fall of 1964.  The kids of Westcott and Princeton schools moved into the building under a new name. That name was the Neal F. Simeon Vocational High School.

Simeon Career Academy, as the school is known today, was moved to a brand-new building at 8147 S. Vincennes in 2003. The fate of the original Westcott building is not known at this time.

Chicago Westcott High School Quick Facts

Year opened:                                      1948

Year name changed to Simeon:         1964

Westcott HS team nickname:            “Wolverines”

Westcott HS team uniform colors:     Royal Blue & Gold

School Fight Song:                             unavailable

ATHLETICSWe are certain the boys of Wescott High School competed in sports. Basketball was a definite as the school is listed in some rather unique records on the IHSA website (www.ihsa.org). We believe that other sports such as football, baseball, and track may have been offered as well. School team nickname, team uniform colors, coach’s names, seasonal records, and fight song are all items we are searching for.BOYS BASKETBALLAccording to the basketball records listed on the IHSA website, the Westcott basketball program had some pretty rough seasons in the 1950s. The program is listed as having the following marks still listed on the IHSA website:

*Westcott lost 42 consecutive games from 1/25/1955 thru 1/23/1959

*Carver HS scored 50 in the fourth quarter on Westcott (who scored 18) on Dec. 21, 1954 (tied for 3rd highest point total in one quarter in IHSA history)

Both teams scored 68 in the same quarter of that game (tied for 17th all-time)

*Darius Cunningham of Carver scored 65 points (28 FG and nine FT) against Westcott on Feb. 10, 1959 (20th best individual total in single-game history).

We like to accentuate the positive, so come on Westcott alumni and fans, send us the good information on Westcott High School.  We would love to share information on the many successes attained at WHS as well.

Memorable Faculty & People

From Chuck Capperino:

Mr. O’Neil, science and printing teacher

From Stardust Kremsner Johnson, valedictorian of the Class of 1959 (dated 6/26/2023):

I graduated in 1959 along with many other girls. The school had a beauty culture, home economics, and secretarial science majors during those years and graduated many girls in those majors, including me.” (NOTE: This was in response to a previous statement that the Westcott student body was male-only prior to 1962, which Stardust states was erroneous.)

Do You Have Information You Wish to Share?

As with all high schools, there has got to be some great stories, memories, and accomplishments that made the Westcott experience unique. If you have any information you wish to share, please contact us at ihsgdwebsite@comcast.net.   You can also write to us via the post office at:

IHSGD Website

6439 N. Neva St.

Chicago, Il.   60631  

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