The Leora Brown School, the rehabilitated 1891 Corydon Colored School, functioned as a Black elementary/secondary school in Corydon, Indiana for almost 60 years. The Leora Brown School, the rehabilitated 1891 Corydon Colored School, functioned as a Black elementary/secondary school in Corydon, Indiana for almost 60 years, The Colored School was built by the Corydon Schools but was closed in 1950
due to an inadequate number of Black elementary age students. When the school opened in 1891, white teachers were hired to teach; however, a committee of three Black men whose children attended the school petitioned the school trustees for the hire of a Black teacher. The trustees agreed to the request of the petitioners and in 1894 hired William Fouse, a Westerville, Ohio native who began his teaching career in Corydon. Professor Fouse was a distinguished graduate of Westerville University and is honored today with an elementary school that bears his name in Westerville. Shortly after his arrival in Corydon, Fouse married Lizzie Cook from Lexington, Kentucky. After their marriage, Lizzie Cook Fouse was also hired to teach at the school. The Fouses left Corydon about 1911 and after completing his graduate degree at the University of Cincinnati, they relocated to Lexington, Kentucky. In Lexington, Professor Fouse became the principal of Dunbar High School and Lizzie Fouse became a national leader in the colored women's club movement. In 1987, the Corydon Colored School was purchased and rehabilitated by Leora Brown's niece, Maxine F. Maxine Brown renamed the school for her aunt since Leora Brown had attended elementary/secondary grades at the school and after college at Madame Blaker's Teachers College in Indianapolis (now a part of Butler University) taught there longer than any other teacher. The school was adapted for reuse as a cultural/educational center and for the past 25 years has hosted many programs. Examples of programs that the Brown School organized were five years of concerts by the Louisville Orchestra that began in 2002 with an original composition about the early settlement of Blacks in Corydon, titled "The Long Road to Freedom - the Mitchem's of Harrison County." Also, Louisville sculptors Ed Hamilton and William Duffy have exhibited their work
and lectured at the Brown School. The Leora Brown School is currently gearing up to concentrate on the issue of systemic racism.
