Abraham Lincoln High School - Lincolnian Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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Ihe enchanted hillside The indolent life of a Spanish pueblo was disturbed at the death of several inhabitants. Then fear startled the settleme nt as more of the people became stricken. This was the beginning of a terrible plague of small-pox that swept the Pueblo. With the people in distressing need for help, Dr. John S. Griffin, offered his services and constantly risked his life to relieve the suffering people. In appreciation for these services, Dr. Griffin, in 1865, was given a small territory of land. This land, the present site of Abraham Lincoln High School, he deeded to his nephew, Hancock Johnston, who sold it to the Baron De Rogniat and his wife, recently from Paris, France. Appreciating the beauty of the hillside, the couple built a mansion on the hill and lived there, until eight years later, their home was burned. Dis- couraged and homesick, they sold the hill site to two Germans named War- neick and returned to France. Almost immediately the atmosphere of the place changed, when the Warneicks converted the hill into an amusement park. Disturbed by the midnight revelry of the Germans, the neighbors protested and the purchase of the property was revoked. Therefore, the hill again became the property of the Baron. However, as he was in France, he sold it to William D. Woolwine. The city next acquired the land and as the pueblo of 1865 had changed somewhat, a school had become necessary to the community. Therefore, when the city came into possession of the hillside it was decided that this was the ideal location for a school. The mansion formerly belonging to Mr. Woolwine was transformed in- to a schoolhouse and other buildings were added to make room for the six- hundred students who were to be enrolled in the new school. These stu- dents were transferred from the Avenue Twenty-one Intermediate School which later became a school for the naturalization of foreigners, and at the present time is the center for superv isors of this northeast district. Mr. Burt 0. Kinney was principal of Avenue-Twenty-one, and several of the instructors who taught there are still at Lincoln High School. In 1915 Ethel Percy Andrus came to Lincoln from Manual Arts, High (Continued on page 101) Seventeen