Holyoke High School, First Building, 1862

by Laurel | April 24th, 2013

First Holyoke High School Building, 1862

First Holyoke High School Building, 1862

In 1862 the first High School Building was erected by the town at the cost of $8,500, the first classes meeting there on December 15th of that year. The description in the record is most interesting: “The structure is of brick, with a slate roof and consists of a main part and two wings. It has two stories, the first twelve feet in height, the second, sixteen feet, with large attic and high basement, and is surmounted by a tasty cupola. The wings afford separate entrances for the two sexes. On the first floor are two rooms affording seats for 60 pupils each, occupied by permission of the town, by a primary and intermediate school of district Number One.” (Showing that the authority of the town was needed for permission at as late a date as this; for the use, by the school district, of town property.) The school committee report for that year states further that the new school “is the best furnished and as beautiful a structure of the kind as, considering the cost, can be found in the Connecticut Valley.” The picture shows the building exactly as it looked to one who attended school there in 1879 even to the urn, and fence and evergreens.

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