Auburn High School - Follies Yearbook (Auburn, IN)

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Although this building has stood for fifty-one long years, it has been known as the Junior High only since 1921. Students, seeing Auburn High School cut in stone over the entrance have wondered, and asked why. Even many of their parents no longer remember the fact that this little building once served as the one High School of Auburn, Indiana. Then enrollments were increased, teachers were added, new subjects were included and this high school no longer sufficed. A new high school was built, the Mcintosh High School, and the seventh and eighth graders took the old school for their very own and renamed it the Junior High School as it stands today. It has rooms especially equipped for sewing and cooking as well as regular classrooms for the various academic subjects taught there. If buildings could talk, this one would say, I do not regret having turned over my former job to the Mc- intosh High School nor do I feel envy toward it. I am just as happy supervising the training of these young students for high school, because from past experience I know what they need. I feel that it is my contribution to the progress of the community that has made me. Page 7

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B i) fi 11 3 }] I) JJ J) D § Ideals grow slowly. And they seldom reach perfection. Education is an example. We can trace our school system from a very small beginning. This can be paralleled by the growth of the community. Certain events in the history of the state and of the nation had their influence and were reflected in local development. The first formal education seems to have been a subscription school started in 1840 with Jane Bailey as teacher. This was only four years after DeKalb County had been organized and Auburn had been designated as the county seat. At this time Auburn ' s population numbered 72. There had been some form of education before this since Indiana was admitted into the Unian in 1816 and, as part of the Northwest Territory, had part of its land sold to pay expenses for education there. Ten years later a select school was open- ed by John B. Clark, who was noted for severity and discipline. In 1853 a special election voted for two free schoolrooms in Auburn, and a log cabin was rented for three months for $2.00 and fitted for school uses. The wage for a man teacher was at this time $18.00 per month and for a woman teacher was $10.00. A three story Academy was built in 1858. It and the graded schools were taught by Dr. Vesta Swartz and Mrs. A. J. Ralston. The teachers were selected at an annual school meeting. In 1876 a new schoolhouse had been built, but it burned four years later. In the years just preceeding this, Auburn had its first train, its first annual street fair, its first polit- ical parties and its First National Bank. By 1895 Auburn had eleven teachers, a princip al and a superintendent. They were: Supt. B. B. Harrison, Principal J. C. Teeters, Mary Teeters, Bertha Yates, Laura Sawyel, Stella Tarney, Jennie Clifton, Lida Ettinger, and Margaret Buckley. There were several factories in Auburn by 1906. Some of the more prominent ones were the Auburn Handle Factory, Auburn Manufacturing Company, Zimmerman Brothers, Eckhart Carriage Company, Au- burn Auto Company, and the Standard Manufacturing Company. The rise of these factories brought more people to the com- munity and there were 937 persons of school age listed. The subjects taught in the schools began to broaden out as manual training and the study of agriculture were introduced to the students. In 1914, just two years later, Sec- retary D. W. Binford of the Y.M.C.A. organ- ized a Students High School Club with the slogan, Clean speech, clean living, clean athletics. This same year the Auburn High School girls held their first field meet in this section. This year, 1914, marked a red letter year for more reasons than one. It was the year of the new courthouse dedication, the for- mal dedication of the Y.M.C.A., the voting Auburn dry by a 220 majority, the dedica- tion of the new city hall, and the beginning of World War I in Europe. The Mcintosh High School was started when W. H. Mcintosh gave a $10,000 site for its construction. H. H. Achemire was award- ed the contract for building it. This same year, 1916, Auburn was the scene of a mam- moth county celebration in honor of Indiana Centennial. Eighty-three floats represented pioneer life and hundreds of school children participated. Because of the feeling against Germany brought about by the war, most of the schools in the United States eliminated Ger- man from their courses of study. Auburn was among them. In 1919 vocational train- ing was added to the school curriculum. By 1921 the new Mcintosh High School was completed and it was dedicated in April. At this time there were 1,001 children of school age in Auburn. In May of this year the Parent-Teachers clubs were formed for the first time. Since athletics were gaining prominence, in 1924 a new Alumni Gymnasium was built and opened to the public. The first games played in it were the Auburn High School girls vs. the Y.M.C.A. girls, and the Auburn High School boys vs. Waterloo High School. As the majority of students and people in the community can probably recall from their own minds the facts and events that have taken place in the last few years, we will stop here. It is enough to say that our present schools and our community have progressed by leaps and bounds and today they are places that we should be proud of. Thus we see in the development of our school system how an ideal has grown from a very small begining into a flourishing reality. In like manner, from meager at- tempts to understand and help other peoples of the world, may develop a strong and flourishing sense of internationalism. Page 6

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The present Auburn High School building had its beginninq in 1916 when Mr. Mcintosh gave the city a $10,000 site for its construction. Although work began immediately, A. H. S. was not complet- ed until 1921 because World War I for two years made it impossible to get the needed materials and workers. The Mcintosh High School still is not complete. The original plans provide for an east wing. In this section will be fully equipped rooms for all voca- tional subjects — band, bookkeeping, typing, agri- culture, manual training, etc. Postwar plans of A. H. S. include the building of this last portion of the school. Page 8