144 approved the use of local taxes to fund free public education to create and build more high schools. The population kept rising from 1940 to 1950. It went from 38,300 people to 44,200 people and to supply the number of school enrollment, U-46 built another building to call Elgin High School.12 Schools were also allowed to act independently from the city in 1873. All these resources allowed U46 as a district to capitalize on it to create more schools and the permanent Elgin High School was founded in 1869. This would be home later to the rival of my old school, Larkin High School which was founded in 1962 to accommodate the population because it has already grown by 5,200.13 Three more high schools would open up in South Elgin, Bartlett, and Streamwood. Middle and Elementary Schools would also rise across 85 square miles by 1946. 21,000 students attended 30 schools within the U-46 district.14 U-46 went above and beyond by including bilingual classes in 1971 to accommodate the big Hispanic population in Elgin.15 This goes to show just how important it was for Elgin’s school district in the rise of Elgin’s population because it had urbanized plenty for people wanting to reside and live here. The great Elgin National Watch Company had its doors closed a few years later in 1968. It was around this time that the people of Elgin decided that having a clean river would benefit them a lot and decided to have projects to clean the Fox River. The Fox River had to go undergo serious changes after all the pollution it had from the urbanization of multiple cities using the river. It was starting to become alarming as, by 1970, Elgin was taking 7 million gallons of water a day of water use from its population of 55,700 people.16 It would take a decade but in 1982, the Riverside Treatment Facility was complete and the Fox River could process 16 million gallons of water a day.17 12 Illinois, Elgin Elgin, Illinois Population 13 Ibid. 14 U46, History of U-46 15 Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Elgin IL.” 16 Illinois, Elgin, Elgin, Illinois Population 17 City of Elgin, History of the Fox River
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