Historic Hood River
First Graduating Class
Notes
We’re lucky to have a great story about this image from the reverse:
This is the first class to be graduated from Hood River High School after it became a four year High School (1907)
First Row, Millard Merrill, Edith Copple, Elwood Luckey, Grace Prather and Gertrude Bowe.
Second Row, Pearl Bradley, Maude Merrill, Ferdinand Struck, Bess Evans, and the High School Faculty, Mr. E. E. Coad, Mrs. Sprecher, Mr. Crouse. This is the Class of H.R.H.S. 1907.
In the spring of 1907, The Dalles High School, which had been a four year school for many years, first challenges HRHS to a number of contests. Some were held in Hood River and some in the Dalles.
The was no Columbia River Highway and participants and fans for these contests went to and from Hood River and The Dalles by Steam boats. We walked from the old Park Street School (which then housed all twelve grades)and was the only Hood River City school building) to the boat landing, near Koberg’s beach. We (about 50 students and faculty members)left Hood River on the steamer “Telephone” for our first debate with T.D.H.S. The debate was on the subject, “Shall the U.S. Gov’t. Own and operate the Railroads.” Debaters representing Hood River High were Fred Struck, Maude Merrill and Burleigh Cash. Hood River High won this first debate. We stayed overnight, next morning T.D.H.S baseball team and fans accompanied us back to H.R. and played baseball on the old field at 12th and Belmont. Some of the girls decided H.R.H.S. needed pennants, so the colors “Blue + White” were chosen by the H.S. and a half dozen girls made the first blue and white pennants- having ordered the felt from Meier and Frank in Portland. We were very proud of our little High School. I was a Soph that year. Martha (Struck) Brunquist
I had never heard of the steamer “Telephone” but it turns out it has a fascinating history well worth reading. After reading about all of its accidents, as well as its captain being arrested and fined multiple times for speeding on the river, I am surprised the residents of Hood River were comfortable entrusting their children to his care.
L.E.
What a fun history, full of information.
Arlen L Sheldrake
amazing history!!!! love the debate topic…interesting choice…like how our HRHS colors were selected…now why DRAGONS?? blue dragons??
speeding on the river is still today an issue…the Port of Kalama is repairing damage caused by a passing merchant with ship insurance $$.
Mostly fond memories of Park Street….
Charlott
A little info on students…
Millard and Maude Merrill were brother and sister. They lived on Frankton Road with parents. Their father worked at a saw mill. Maud married Elmer Isenberg and remained in Hood River, living on their farm on Orchard Road.
Edith Copple was a Pine Grove resident living with parents Simpson and Alice. Her father had a farm there. She would marry Claude Harter Kepler and they would live in California.
John Elwood Luckey was the son of John Luckey and Lillian Rand. His father was a blacksmith in town. He never married and lived in the Willamette Valley , Eugene I think, where he was at one time in business with a cousin of his father’s, owning Club Cigar Store. He was a graduate of the U. of Oregon and very involved in community affairs such as Elks, Shriner’s, Knights of Pythias. One interesting note is that he, his father and mother all died within a 36 hour period of each other.
Grace Prather’s father, George was an insurance agent here in H. R. She married a Robert Ross Alexander and eventually moved to the San
Diego area.
Ferdinand Struck was born in Germany and relocated with his father Ludwig and Bertha to the U. S. He was a member of a very large family.
Probably most of these students lived at home and went back and forth to school daily. I do know that in some years later that some valley high schoolers boarded in town and went home on week ends. Just too far to go back and forth on a daily basis. I know my one great aunt boarded and her sister who was older rode her horse "Ginger" back and forth and left it somewhere close to the high school.
Charlott
E.E. Coad probably did teach, but he was the superintendent of schools.
Terry Toy Covington
Ferdinand Struck was my great-uncle on my maternal side. The family was, indeed, large, consisting of 11 children – 10 boys and one girl, Martha Bertha Struck, who later married Leland Brunquist of Parkdale. If you know where Good News Gardening is in Hood River, that was the Struck home, built by Ferd’s father, Ludwig Struck. There were 3 acres of apples at that corner which belonged to the family. Ludwig was a contractor as well, and there are several homes still standing in Hood River on which he worked. George Struck of Parkdale was another of Ferd’s brothers. One of his sons, Jim Struck, was a long-time orchardist in the Parkdale area, as well. Another brother of Ferd, Ernie Struck, was a cattle rancher near Lyle for many years, and donated the land for what is now the Lyle-Balch Cemetery. Yet another of Ferd’s brothers, Herman Struck, was an oil painter who eventually moved to California. (There are two painters named Herman Struck, not related.) And so on. The Strucks originally emigrated from Germany to Wisconsin. They had to return to Germany for a few years, and the next time they came to the US. it was to Hood River. Bertha Struck was related to the Runge family who were here. The Strucks and Runges were some of the original founders of the Immanuel Lutheran Church on 9th Street in Hood River.