Salina High School - Trail Yearbook (Salina, KS)

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Through The Years Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule The village master taught his little school. -Goldsmith's Deserted Village So it was that in the days when Kansas was the frontier, as each small group of settlers grew large enough to call themselves a com- munity, schools were needed and subsequently established. In 1862 the four-year-old village of Salina hired Miss Etta Thacker to teach her children. The school room was in 'he south downstairs room of the home of Mrs. Christina Phillips. which stood on the corner of Santa Fe and Iron, where the Farmers' National Bank is now. There followed a succession of several school teachers and as many school rooms. The first school building was erected in 1868 on the present site of Roosevelt High School. It was a frame stucture, two stories, with a large room and hall downstairs ar d two rooms above. For six years it served well, then the increasing school population made neces- sary a larger building. And so in 1874 was built the old school house known for many long years as Old Central. From 1874 to 1922 it stood-48 years of faithful service to the children of Salina. Old Central was razed in 1922 to make way for Roosevelt ,lun- ior High-and many were the men and women who recalled happy school days when the old structure fell. The building was three stories high, brick, and the contract price was about 3550,000. The six rooms in the first and sec- ond floors were finished and occupied in 1874. In the summer of 1877 the east room on the third floor was finished and in the fall ofthat year the Salina High School opened. T. D. Fitzpatrick came from Topeka to be the super- intendent of city schools, in which capacity he served for eight years. Under Mr. Fitzpat- rick were seven young women teaching. The spring of 1878 was especially eventful- the first graduating exercises of a Salina High School class were held. The members of the class were Miss Maggie Rash and and Mr. Arthur Day. The exercises were held on a ,Iune afternoonrin the Salina Opera House, on the site of the present United Life Building, The stage was entirely to large for the two members of the graduating class and Mr. Fitz- patrick, so every member of the Salina school faculty-seven in number-was invited to sit on the platform. The large room was quite filled-most of Salina turned out to see Mag- gie Rash and Arthur Day graduate. The exercises consisted of an address by each of the graduates, music, a talk by Supt. Fitzpat- rick, and the presentation of diplomas. In 1880 there was only one member of the grad- uating class. She was Mary Campbell, now Mrs. Palmer. For many years the custom persisted for each graduate to give an address in the exercises, as well as for the faculty to sit on the platform with the graduates. In 1880 the Second Ward School, now know as Longfellow, was built. In the next few years Salina grew very rapidly, for in 1887 Oakdale,

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South Park, and Logan were added. Oakdale was torn down in 1930 and replaced by the the lovely new building which is Salina's most recently constructed school. The orig- inal South Park was destroyed by fire many years ago and the present South Park built on the same site. Logan school, which was situated in the Southeast corner of the city, never had enough pupils to require the use of more than two rooms, and it was abandoned to be later sold to a contractor for the mater- ials. Before long the high school had far outgrown its quarters in the third floor of Old Central, and so until the new high school building could be completed, the third floor of the building on the southeast corner of Walnut and Santa Fe-afterwards occupied by the Business College-was used. The first high school building was on the Central grounds, in the middle of what is now the playground for Lincoln and Roosevelt. This first high school building soon proved too small for the growing number of students and and in 1909 Washigton High was completed. The first class to graduate from Washington had 36 members. Several more grade schools were added in the next few years. When Lincoln building was erected in 1917, nothing could have better expressed the progress made in educational facilities in Salina than the two buildings Old Central and Lincoln, facing each other across the Central grounds. Roosevelt was completed in 1926 and now rules the spot where Old Central stood for so long. The three high school buildings are supplemented by the three cottages near Washington building. The Through The Years S.H.S. faculty numbers 69, and the student body, increasing every year, has reached 2.086 for 1937-38. In m tking plans for Salina public schools, Salinais Board of Education in add- ing to building and department equipment, expanding the program of activities, increas- ing the opportunities for all types of students, and in employing teachers to carry on the class-room and extra-curricular activities has had constantly in mind the following ideal for public school education: No other nation has ever cherished so unwavering a faith in education as we Americans. No other nation has ever shown itself so willing to pour its money and its energy into all sorts of educa- tional experiments. We believe profoundly that the strength of the nation is measured not by armies and navies and fortification. but by schools-schools for all the children of all the people, adapted not to one type of mentality, but various enough to meet the needs of all without detriment to any, yet constituting one single system, open to all worthy aspirants from top to bottom, giving each an opportun- ity to prove by actual trial whether he is able to do the work of the next step ahead. Prob- ably the next addition to the Salina School System will be a new Senior High building. But whether it is a new or old, whether now or 25 years hence, may we remember the inscription on the tablet fixed in the cor- ner of Lincoln: The school should teach every child by precept, by example, and by every illustration it's reading can supply, that the supreme attainment in any life is vigor and loveliness of character?