Cooper School

The first Cooper School, known officially as Nankin District No. 1 School, was built around 1837 on a farm owned by Gilbert Cooper at the southwest corner of present-day Ann Arbor Trail and Middlebelt Road. The Coopers were Nankin Township pioneers who owned a gristmill on the Rouge River. Cooper School became Fractional No. 1 of Nankin and Livonia in 1849. In 1865 the district built a one-room school on land leased from Cooper’s son Loren. It was replaced in 1938 with a brick structure, which was annexed to the Livonia Public Schools in 1957. A fourth school, built in 1966 across the road from here, closed in June 1991 due to growing concern about the school’s location on a landfill. In September 1991 the former Whittier Junior High School reopened as the fifth Cooper School.