Les Cropettes owe their name to the Cropet family, who acquired the area in the 17th century. The demolition of the fortifications in the 1850s made it possible to redesign the Les Grottes district in particular. The park took shape thanks to the successive donations made by Madame Odier-Beaulacre, who gave the city first the lower part of her property along the current rue de Montbrillant and later the upper part, also financing the construction of the Ecole enfantine. The bucolic pavilion at the bottom of the park was built in 1870. In 1873 the rest of the estate was bought by the city of Geneva (thanks to the legacy of the Duke of Brunswick). A pond was then created in the shape of an orange quarter. The statue of a girl catching a fish was erected in 1971. Built in 1901, the elementary school, with its bell towers typical of early 20th-century Swiss style, is the work of architect Marc Camoletti (author of the Musée d'art et d'histoire and the Mont Blanc Post). Two contemporary buildings were added to the school in the 1990s and in 2013.