First Wenatchee School Opened in 1885 – 08/02/24

Photo caption: Children and a teacher play “two-by-two” outside the old Stevens School around 1910. Source: Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, #58-9-11.

Written by Chris Rader

Since early Colonial days in America, schools have been an integral part of community life. The Land Ordinance of 1785 required frontier states (between the Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River) to set aside a section, or one square mile, in every 36-square-mile township being surveyed for the western-moving population. This requirement went away with the Homestead Act of 1862 and was never formally applied west of the Mississippi.

But western communities didn’t need the government to tell them how and where to build schools. By the time Washington Territory was settled, schools were popping up wherever there seemed to be a need. Small classes met in homes, businesses or wherever space was available until families got together to build schools on property often donated to the public good. Families were assessed a small amount to pay the teacher’s salary until the community grew large enough to form a school district and collect taxes for education.

The first white settler arrived in the Wenatchee area in 1868, and others trickled in soon after. George Washington Blair came in 1883 with his wife, five children and grown stepson, Charles Davis. He homesteaded 160 acres on “Wenatchee flats” (today’s Wenatchee), raising apricots, peaches and other tree fruit. He and a handful of other family men built the first school and his stepson was its first teacher.

This school opened in 1885, a little 16-by-20-foot log building at the intersection of Miller and Washington streets. Davis taught the first year; Etta Burch, whose family owned a large amount of land at Olds Station and Burch Mountain, was the second teacher; and Charles Cooper was the third. Cooper’s records in 1888 showed 23 students attending the one-room school. It was replaced in 1889 by the North End School, built on the site of today’s Lewis and Clark Elementary at Princeton Street, just south of Springwater.

Other area schools

The first school in the Mission/Cashmere area was built of logs in 1889, at the mouth of Brender Canyon. The first teacher was Alios Stone; 16 pupils were enrolled, in various grades. The Mission View School, built in 1900, had one room, with 27 pupils and a school term of three or four months. School days in Monitor began at the home of Russell and Alice Thrall, at the mouth of Fairview Canyon.

In 1892, Monitor families built a one-room schoolhouse on a site now occupied by Boswell’s Furniture. This was replaced around 1905 by a two-story, four-roomed school which burned in 1919. A new school was built the following year. It closed in 1969 when the Monitor School District consolidated with Cashmere.

Waterville’ s first educational center was a one-room log school built in 1885 at the foot of Badger Mountain, about five miles south of present-day Waterville. Its teacher was R.S. Steiner, later superior court judge of Douglas, Chelan and Ferry counties. Judge Steiner estimated that only about 50 people resided in all of Douglas County at that time (1). (Editor’s note: See the Winter 2008-09 edition of The Confluence for a history of schools in East Wenatchee.)

But it was the coming of the Great Northern Railway Company in 1892 that really caused schools to sprout in the Wenatchee Valley. Construction of the tracks and the tunnel under Stevens Pass required a large work force – and many of the railroad workers brought their families to live in the scenic but tiny communities along the Great Northern route, even before it was completed. Little schools in Sunnyslope, Monitor, Cashmere, Dryden, Peshastin, Blewett, Leavenworth, Chiwaukum, Winton, Nason Creek, Merritt and Berne served families in the late 1800s and early 1900s, slowly consolidating into larger districts.

In Wenatchee, the Stevens School was built in 1893-94 on the block that today houses the post office. Originally called the Wenatchee School, its name was changed in 1904 to honor Washington Territory’s first governor, Isaac Stevens. The property was owned by the Wenatchee Development Company. In 1906 the company issued a deed for the property to the school board for $1.00. Stevens School was situated in the center of town, in those days, with the steamboat landing at the foot of Chehalis Street and the railroad depot at the foot of First Street.

Many school districts in early days

When Chelan County was formed in 1899, the commissioners appointed J.D. Atkinson of Chiwaukum as the first superintendent of schools. The following year the voters got to choose the superintendent, and they elected John E. Porter of Wenatchee. In those early years there were dozens of school districts in Chelan County, from Berne to Malaga, Twenty-five Mile Creek and Azwell (north of Chelan) – often containing just one school. Pioneer Entiat resident Al “Shorty” Long recalled that schools were built about every four miles in the Entiat area in the old days – including Vaughn, Dick, Mesa, Knapp, Ardenvoir and Pine Dell (2).

The Beacon Hill district was formed in April 1901; the school, a two-room frame building, sat at the top of Chatham Hill. It was sold in 1915 when the new Sunnyslope School opened, and the Beacon Hill district became part of the Sunnyslope school district. So did the district containing the Warm Springs school, built in 1907 on the old road to Monitor. South Wenatchee had its own district and school, later named Mission View. South of town, the Colockum school district formed in April 1904. It consolidated with Malaga and later with Wenatchee; along with Lower Colockum and Upper Colockum were schools located on Stemilt Hill, Wheeler Hill (now called Wenatchee Heights), Pitcher Canyon and Squilchuck Canyon.

School board members in Wenatchee’ s North End School District around 1900 were also leaders of the small but thriving town, including Dr. Colin Gilchrist, justice of the peace I.W. Reeves, hotelier O.B. Fuller and tree fruit grower/shipper Conrad Rose. Superintendent Porter reported in 1903 that 59 teachers were employed in 38 school districts in Chelan County. The average monthly salary paid to male teachers was $55 and $44.23 for female teachers – and the average school year was just under six months (3).

Two more rooms were added to the North End School in 1903. Each room had a wood stove in front; those pupils sitting near the stove often were overly warm, while those in back kept their coats on till the room warmed up. Just inside the door on a bench at the front of the room was a water bucket, with a dipper for all to share.

Among the items of business on the school board docket for 1903-04 were:

• Approval of teachers’ monthly salaries: Lelia Bigelow $40, Janie Wilson $50, Charles Tucker $75
• Initiating a five-mill tax levy for school purposes
• Approval of a payment of $6.50 to J.E. Shepard for hauling barrels of water to school with his horse and wagon
• A ruling against an irate mother who complained her son had been treated cruelly. Board members declared they “believed all the punishment administered was well deserved” (4).

By this time, Wenatchee’s two elementary schools were becoming more crowded. Another room was added on to the Stevens School, and a $10,000 bond election was held for construction of a new school. This eight-room building on Chelan Street, named after missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, was originally planned as a high school but soon was opened to elementary students as well. The older students occupied the upper story of the building, with the younger ones on the first floor.

The first order of school supplies for Whitman School in 1904 included chalk, paper, one globe, 50 song books, one reference book for history, six reference books for zoology, one German grammar, 60 English classics, four teachers’ grade books and a set of maps for $100 (the school board nixed the map expenditure) (5). By 1905 approximately 60 students were studying at the high school level in Wenatchee.

Between 1900 and 1910, Wenatchee’s population increased almost tenfold. School enrollment at Whitman, Stevens and North End schools in fall 1910 was 1,142 with most students attending Stevens School. The school term was 36 weeks – though on several occasions schools were closed for a week or two during smallpox or scarlet fever epidemics. Steam and oil heat had replaced wood stoves, and telephones were installed in each building.

More schools built in Wenatchee

Wenatchee voters approved construction of a “real” high school in October 1907. The school was built in 1909- 10 for $65,000 in the Grandview Addition, at the junction of King, Delaware and Idaho streets. More students were choosing to continue their education to 12 grades, which was a source of pride to those promoting Wenatchee as the “apple capital of the world” as an enticement to further development. As former teacher, school superintendent and state legislator Eva Anderson wrote in a Heritage Committee historical column in the daily newspaper decades later:

Wenatchee High School, with its traditional yell of “boom-a­lacka, boom-a-lacka, bow wow wow!” had something else to crow about besides football in those early days. What a proud and happy day, when the student body moved to the first section of high school on March 8, 1910. A beautiful red brick, with light brick and terra cotta trim; a gymnasium, 45 by 68 feet and 16 feet high with tiny gallery, and even dressing rooms. Yes, and an assembly hall with capacity for 300 or even 500 if visitors crowded sufficiently into auditorium and gallery. And there was a stage! (6)

Thanks to the newly completed city water system, the new school even had drinking fountains – meaning an end forever to the water bucket and old tin dipper. A horticulture department, led by R.E. Trumble, offered classes to students by day and ranchers in the evenings. Manual training, or shop classes, were begun by R.C. Stockton. Warren Dow was the first principal at Wenatchee High School, followed by J.C. Nelson.

However, finances were tight in the school district. In 1914 the school board had to reduce staff at the high school including the school nurse, the supervisor of drawing and penmanship, the supervisor of music, and the athletic coach. In addition, the board voted not to extend the contract of principal Nelson.

Tempers flared within the student body. As a result, on April 23, 1914, the entire student body (about 280) walked out of the Wenatchee High School and marched down to the main street of town with banners displaying their objections to Board action. Banners included such statements as “Rehire the Coach,” “Keep Our Supervisors,” and “We Want a Nurse.” … Evidently, parents took things into their own hands because the next day, Friday, after the march, students returned to their classes (7).

Wellington Pegg became principal of Wenatchee High School in 1916, serving for more than 20 years. Pupils later described him as able administrator, a wise and understanding counselor, and champion of the underdog.

In South Wenatchee, contractors Bird and Hobson (who owned Wenatchee’s productive brickyard on the Columbia River) began building a four-room brick schoolhouse in 1909. The Lincoln School added another four rooms the following year. In 1922 more classes and an auditorium were added. This structure served students until the 1950s, when it was replaced by a new building on a larger site across Methow Street.

Aging buildings replaced

Columbia School was built in 1923 on a four-acre tract at the corner of Orondo and Alaska streets. The original building had 12 rooms. As adjacent properties were acquired in 1927 and 1945, the school expanded greatly. It was finally torn down and replaced in 1988.

The building which had once been the North End School later became known as Lewis and Clark Elementary School. A fire in January 1922 completely destroyed the original brick structure. Portable buildings were hauled in to complete the year and contractors hastened to build a new school for the following year. This, too, was torn down and replaced in 1988 – as was the Mission View School. Some community members objected to the demolition of these historic buildings, but school district spokesman Don Richards stated that it was not economically feasible to maintain them.

By 1923 Stevens School had become overcrowded and was using a portable annex to accommodate students. Voters approved a $56,000 bond to build a new school but turned down the more costly proposition to sell the old site and seek a new one. As with many of the Wenatchee schools at that time, Ludwig Solberg was the architect. The new Stevens School was built adjacent to the old building, with classes having to contend with construction noises for a year and a half. By the 1960s family population had shifted away from the downtown area and Stevens was closed as a school. It was remodeled in 1963 to serve as a maintenance shop, laundry, central library, and furniture and equipment storage facility for the Wenatchee School District. The building and site were sold to the federal government in 1970 for $200,000 to be used as a post office.

The Whitman School, its original 1903 structure replaced with a new building in 1939, was abandoned as a school in 1974. The building was remodeled into a bank, now called Wells Fargo, at 301 North Chelan.

In 1928 the Wenatchee School Board authorized construction of a junior high school. Voters approved a $245,000 bond and the school was built as an add-on to the high school. H.B. Ellison, principal of Whitman School, was brought to the junior high in 1929. Popular with students and adults alike, he served in that capacity until his sudden death in January 1937 while walking through the snow to school. The school was renamed H.B. Ellison Junior High in his honor. The junior-senior high school building added a vocational wing in 1938.

With the opening of Pioneer Junior High in 1956 (and Orchard Junior High in 1962), the junior high addition to the high school building was converted to high school use. The current Wenatchee High School opened in 1972 at the corner of Miller and Millerdale. The junior highs changed to middle schools in 1984, accommodating students in sixth through eighth grades. Foothills Middle School was built in 1993.

ENDNOTES:

1. Saga of the One-Teacher Schools of Chelan and Douglas Counties, compiled in 1989 by retired teachers of Chelan and Douglas counties for a Washington Centennial project; chair, Estel Taylor.
2. Ibid.
3. History of North Washington, edited by Richard F. Steele, 1904.
4. Carolyn Sterling, History of the Wenatchee Public Schools, 1973.
5. Ibid.
6. Wenatchee Daily World, July 19, 1967.
7. Sterling, op.cit.

This story was originally published in Confluence Magazine in the Winter edition of 2010-11. In an effort to preserve these stories, the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center will be posting these stories on the museum’s official blog.

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