Dubuque High School - Echo Yearbook (Dubuque, IA)

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The imposing stone structure of Dubuque Senior High School sits atop West Locust Street Hill, its buildings alive with the vitality of youth. Perhaps upon this very hill a Siouan Indian built his camp- fires. Who knows when the white man stepped for the first time on this spot? Who could have imagined then that one day this hill would be a busy center of public education? Who can foresee what will happen here in another 100 years? Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, trav- eling by canoe on the Mississippi, were the first white men to reach what is now Dubuque. In the spring of 1673 these two men arrived here, talked and preached to the Indians, and departed. The efforts of these men were a part of a French desire to settle, for farming, lands in central Canada and those west of the Mississippi. However, the main French interest turned to fur trading with the In- dians, and this trading extended into Dubuque County. The Indians in this part of the country were two nations-the Siouan and the Algonkian. The Siouans, living by hunting, were nomads, but the Algonkian were village-building Indians. One of the main tribes of the Algonkian, the Fox, was the first to have villages in Dubuque County. Iulien Dubuque, for Whom the county and the city of Dubuque were named, was born in the province of Quebec, Nicollet County. He set out while still a boy to make his fortune, arriving in 1793 at Prairie du Chien to become a fur trader. In 1788, after Dubuque had made a visit to the The atmosphere of a river town is shown by this artist's conception of Dubuque in 1857. Zim if Julien Dubuque Fox Indian villages down riv- er, the Indians granted him permission to mine lead in Dubuque. Although there was much doubt concerning Du- buqueis right to his mines, he was allowed to continue in his possession of them. In 1810, after serving for a time as Indian agent in Prairie du Chien, Dubuque died in his cabin on Catfish Creek. Be- cause Dubuque had held him- self aloof and kept no rec- ords, very little is known about his life. The early settlers of Du- buque, whether they arrived by road and trail or by canal and river, found a life that was hard, but promising. Walt Whitman has written these words of the pioneering spirit. We the primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines when, We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

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This one-room-school is typical of many that existed in this country. Those who founded Dubuque were young men-Julien Dn- buque had been only 26 when he made his agreement with the Fox Indians-james Langworthy, George W. Iones, jesse P. Farley, Iohn King, John Plumbe, Ir., Caleb Booth, and Father Mazzuchelli were some of those influential in Duibuqneis establishment. Lumbermen, lawyers, railroad builders, lead miners, contractors-they initiated the trans- formation of wooded hills into a frontier town. The years passed, Dubuque grew, and the need for edu- cation became apparent. In 1833, because there was no state government in what is now Iowa, there could bc no public school system. Therefore all the schools operated on a private basis. A school was organized in the first year of legal settlement, and George Cubbage became Dubuques first school teacher. Barrett Whitte- more, Mrs. Caroline Dexter, Mrs. Oilleilley, and Mrs. Louise King opened private schools. In 1838 some of Dulbuqneis leading citizens-P. A. Lorimer, Ezekiel Lockwood, Ioseph Fales, Patrick Quigley, Benjamin Ru- pert, Thomas Wilson, and Lucius Langworthy-incorporated the Du- buque Seminaryf, Alanzo Phelps was hired to teach Gall branches of a lib- eral educationf, In 1840 T. B. Burr opened a school in the basement of the Presbyterian Church. It was not until 1844 that Iowa Territory had an education law with the authorization to raise money for school purposes by taxation. This law also made Dubuque a single school district and stated that school district officers should be elected. Warner Lewis was elected president, E. Normal was elected secretary, and Miss Dorthy Bechtel drew this pen and ink wash drawing of the Fifth Ward School. Miss Bechtel is co-ordinator of art in the Dubuque Public Schools.