History of the JR SR High School
Decatur's first brick school building was built in 1863-64 and it housed students in all grade levels living in the village. Some students transferred from country schools to be educated in what was known to be a prestigious school. The school was so well respected that the University of Michigan admitted all Decatur graduates without an entrance exam.
At the midnight hour on a school night in 1919, the school building burned to the ground apparently without reason, according to old newspaper accounts. The cause of the fire was undetermined, and records showed only slight speculation about a rash of unexplained fires at the time that destroyed other landmark buildings throughout the village.
The school board at the time quickly raised funding to relocate elementary and grammar students and built a modern-day building on, or nearly on, the grounds of the burned site, the corner of what is now Edgar Bergen and School streets, according to Wayne Hellenga, superintendent of schools from 1958-1981.
Decatur's Old High School
The old high school building, erected in 1920, opened its doors in September of that year to serve as the community's first school building exclusively for high school students, which at the time included grades seven through 12. A new high school was built and the last high school class graduated in 1963. The Bergen building became the name for the later elementary students, grades four through six, taught there. By the new millennium, a new middle school was built in Decatur and the Bergen building was used for an alternative-education program until 2007.