Our Lady of the Angels School (Illinois)

Our Lady of the Angels School was a Roman Catholic elementary and middle school located in the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Some sources describe the school as "in Austin".

The school was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and served as the parish school of the Our Lady of the Angels Church.

The school is best known for the fatal Our Lady of the Angels School Fire, which occurred on December 1, 1958. The fire killed 92 students and 3 nuns and led to fire safety consciousness in private and public schools in the United States.

Our Lady of the Angels was an elementary and middle school comprising kindergarten plus eight grades. It was located at 909 North Avers Avenue in the Humboldt Park area on the West Side of Chicago, at the intersection of West Iowa Street. The school was located in a mostly Italian-American middle class community; the community held several second and third generation immigrant groups, including Italian Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, and German Americans. Most members of the community were Roman Catholics.

The area was originally mostly Irish, but slowly became mostly Italian by 1958.

The facility was part of a large Roman Catholic parish which also consisted of a church, rectory, convent of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and two other parish halls. The school was the educational home to approximately 1,600 students. The north wing was a two-story structure built in 1910, but remodeled several times later; the building originally consisted of a first-floor church and a second-floor school. The entire building became a school when a newer church facility opened in 1939. A south wing dating from 1939 was connected in 1951 by an annex to the north wing. The two original buildings and the annex formed a U-shape, with a narrow fenced courtyard between.

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