Post from Ridge Historical Society:
Not really all that long ago, this would have been a common sight on the Ridge – cattle grazing in a pasture. Now there is only one place left to see this – the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences (CHSAS), located on 111th Street just east of Pulaski. These guys are in the pasture by the bus-turn-around on 115th Street. They've been out there all summer.
That land has never been anything but farmland. It has been owned by the Chicago Board of Education (CBOE) since some time in the 1800s, although the answer to the question of how the CBOE came to own this land way back then continues to elude RHS research. It was said to have been purchased as an investment.
The CBOE rented out the land, about 72 acres, to farmers. Some of the last families to use the land were the Aggens, Langlands, Van Latens and Ouwengas. CBOE built the Annie Keller School for Gifted Children on land that Mrs. Aggen said was "five acres of our best asparagus patch."
In the early 1970s, the CBOE started thinking about other uses for the land. The land all around was developed with houses, streets, businesses, parking lots. Everyone assumed that would happen there also. Rumors flew around – the land would be used for public housing by the Chicago Housing Authority, etc., etc.
By 1980, the land was found to be the last registered farm in the City of Chicago. Some members of of the CBOE wanted to sell the land off to developers to raise money. The local community wanted to save the farmland as some kind of historic site.
In 1983, Chicago School Superintendent Ruth Love announced she was in favor of using the land for an agricultural high school and horticulture laboratory. The purpose was not to train farmers but to prepare students for careers in all areas of agribusiness.
CHSAS was created in 1984 and opened in 1985. As a magnet school, it was open to students from all over the city. The school had 150 openings the first year, and six months before the opening with almost no advertising, they already had over 500 applications from all over the city and were expecting many more.
CHSAS started as a branch of the Morgan Park High School, where the agriculture students went in the morning for the usual high school classes, and then in the afternoon they had their specialty classes at the farm in the old Keller School building. The Keller School gifted student program had moved to another school.
Today, CHSAS thrives, with over 600 students, offering everything from Agricultural Finance to Biotechnology. The school serves as a model for other schools across the country.