The first Cooper School, officially called 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 grist mill on the Rouge River. In 1849, Cooper School became Fractional No. 1 of Nankin and Livonia. In 1865, the district built a one-room school on land leased from Gilbert Cooper's son Loren. That building was replaced in 1938 by a brick structure, which was annexed to the Livonia Public Schools in 1957. A fourth school, built in 1966 across the road, closed in June 1991 because of growing concern about its location on a landfill. In September 1991, the former Whittier Junior High School reopened as the fifth Cooper School.