Pulaski High School - Cavalier Yearbook (Milwaukee, WI)

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TI-IE HISTORY OF Tl-IE PULASKI I-IIGI-I SCI-IGOL HE history of the Pulaski High School is unusual. Not only is the site which it now occupies full of romantic Indian but its present seems to be as fanciful, with the same captivating glamour as its past. lore, Its site, in history, goes back to the time when, a hundred years ago, it served as the plot for the Indian village of a Menomonee tribe. Later it was sold to white men, who, in due time, sold it to the last private owner, Mr. McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy used these grounds as the basis of a rather profitable ice business, with our present lagoon serving as the lake from which the ice was cut and then stored in a large ice- house on the very ground where our school barracks now stand. With the surrounding prairies, and its com- parative seculsion, our Pulaski High School site was the place of main attraction some 20 to 2 5 years ago, when Mr. McCarthy's lake was the ole swimming hole, and the Kinnickinnic River, the favorite crabbing stream which the fathers of most of our boys and girls frequented, and where some of the teachers spent many hours in their youth during vacation periods playing cowboys and Indians in the tall jun- gle weeds. Within the past I5 years, primarily because this extremity of town became the nucleus for a group of industries, mostly foundries, many families moved here. The territory soon became so densely populated that the School Board, as early as 1929, realized the need for an additional high school in this part of the city. This, however, could not be realized at that time, because of the trying situations cre- ated by the initial year of the depression. In 1932 the two neighboring south side high schools, Bay View and South Division, were so crowded that, while funds were not yet available, nevertheless, the Superintendent's Office and the Milwaukee School Board found that without further delay the erection of barracks was necessary in the summer of 1933. In September, Pulaski High School opened its doors to the children of the community and started with an enrollment of 457 students, and I7 teachers. Its phenomenal growth can be readily attested to when the next year, in Sep- tember, 1934, the enrollment mounted to 801 students, with 26 teachers. In the third year, in September, 193 5, I2 SQ students attended, with 38 teachers employed, while the last year wit- nessed well over I40O students, with 50 in- structors conducting classes. The first graduating class consists of 177 members, little short indeed of the 210 fresh- men who came to us four years ago. We hope that we can carry on in the best traditions established by these true pioneers of the Pulaski High School, ever enhancing the glory of this- our Alma Mater!