Central High School - Maroon and White Yearbook (Sioux City, IA)

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'A+' Q-T' ,. . , , , mgoom 1g 2 L5 The EVOlUt1OD of the By RIRS. H ET RUKI 1868 to 1913 is a far cry in the history of a high school, for, serious merging of the old New lingland academy into the present system of secondary education began only in the early sixties. In the heart of this city, hidden by surrounding buildings, there still stands the Brick Central, a structure quite pretentious for days just throwing off pioneer conditions. Here, one room and one teacher sufliced for the nucleus of the High School. The limitations of those days were severe, hut the men who founded this school system, men coming from some of the hest colleges in the land, laid the foundations rock-ribbed. They were huilding for the future. It was a proud day for the town when three timid, modestly-clad girls delivered their final essays-the first graduating class! I THE BRICK CENTRAL SIOUX C1ty I-hgh School TIE K. DEL Fosst. ,M1 4 l 1 THE OLD l PLAID 1 r 1 1 1 1 1 A few years later the High School was transferred to a small wooden building painted in two-toned gray plaids-whence its name, f'The Old Plaidf' Here, on the corner of Pierce and Fifth Streets, the environment was still more primitive. The science department hemoaned the lack of appa- ratus. An occasional experiment with combustihles, sending out a lurid, hazy atmosphere, oyer-au ed the youngsters, or if the experiment merely hzzled, violet colored remarks were called in to restain their joy. But of all luxuries, the Round House whistle was chief, for a three days' hlizzard could easily he counted on. The living Was, indeed, plain-but the boys and girls of those days are now doing some high thinking. PAGE ELEVEN

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1, :,r, 'fi '-A M FW ---' 1 ,g Q. .,g,., ' 1 H N 1:f T A, e e THE ARMSTRONG But the wings of time fluttered over the Old Plaidf' Its sides were ready to burst with its sixty or more pupils, who migrated to the Armstrong. That happened in '83. One fair-sized assembly room and three recitation rooms seemed so spacious that permanency of location was anticipated. Right here was a period of innovations. One well-remembered day the school acquired an air-pump of improved design-next, a skeleton, kept in a closet and brought out on rare occasions to teach something of anatomy. . Athletics! To bring a ball and bat to school! Criminal was the rank- ing in the school code, but when the afternoon session was over the boys leaped down the stairs and on to the vacant lots between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets on Pierce. The corps of teachers had attained the surprising number of four- three ladies and one man. One of these ladies frowned on sports which PAGE TWELVE xxx, t-'f 4 interfered with study, and the man had a wooden leg, naturally he didnyt run to athletics. Yet prowess was not thus to be suppressed, for several years later, from this number we boasted of '4Treadway of Yalef' and winners in the state regatta. Great is the heritage of our athletes of today! Here, at the Armstrong in '87, the school library was founded with one hundred and thirty volumes. These quarters were outgrown in a decade. Then rose The Castle on the Hill in all its glory-even today, after a lapse of twenty years, pride in the structure is undimmed, and to such remarkable efficiency has grown this department of public school education that accommodations are now in process for housing over twelve hundred pupils. And so from its first graduating class of three and from a corps of one to the present status of one hundred and sixty graduates and over forty teachers-priceless memories, priceless results mark the evolution of the Sioux City High School. THE CAS TLE ON THE HILL