Historic Hood River
Old High School, New
5-14-2014
Notes
We’ve already seen some nice images of Hood River’s first high school, which was located at the present site of the May Street Elementary School. Here it is under construction in 1908. Robert (Bert) Kent and Orville Lapins(?) were apparently employed as painters, and took advantage of that to check out the view.
Bill Seaton
In 1954, we called it May Street School, and I spent my 8th Grade year in the first floor corner classroom closest to us in this picture.
ralph
What does the writing on wall say/ mean?
l.e.
One of Hood River’s "beautiful" schools.
The classrooms in these schools had a sound all of their own. Kind of an echo sound that seems to leave an imprint in our memory.
Arthur
The writing on the cornice says "Agrippa" and "Napier". I believe each side of the building had names of people you would learn about inside. Napier was the mathematician who is best known for inventing logarithms, and Agrippa was a Roman statesman. I wonder how they chose which names to put on the cornice?
longshot
It is really amazing the quality of building that the public could afford back then. The number of hours of labor to build such a building must have been many times what it would be today. How were such works financed? Property taxes? Public donations?
nels
Whatever happened to this stately and architecturally interesting design?
Arthur
I don’t know about this building, but city records from the same era show similar funding for public works as today– property tax assessments, with public votes for bond issues. I don’t think it was very different in structure than it is today.
The first attempt to pass a bond to acquire land for the library (1911, I think) failed amidst a flurry of letters to the editor saying we need to build roads to get our crops to market before we build a library. They figured out a cheaper way to get land so the library eventually got built.
Buzz
Nels, I have sometimes thought it is every architects dream to design and have built their own idea of the new and modern "taj mahal."
nels
But, in my mind’s eye view, this has no resemblance to the current May St Elementary school which is only one story and looks to be of more recent construction. Maybe the current HRMS? That would be more logical.
Judy
It would not surprise me, but I think this was torn down for the May St. School as it looks today. The HRMS (old Senior High) has always been where it is today.
l.e.
Nels…here is the completed school:
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=155
And here is the football team sitting on, perhaps the same steps we are looking at in this photo.
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=55
And then, its demise…
https://www.hoodriverhistorymuseum.org?showimage=231
Norma
This building was torn down in the summer of 1956 to build the current May Street School. Unfortunately there was a steel strike and the new school could not be built that year. The gym was turned into classrooms for the 6th and 8th graders and the 7th graders came to the high school to an area in the basement that had been used for storage. After they left we had 2 new classrooms for business classes.
Hoodoo creek
We really are stupid. We destroy such beautiful buildings to build the ugly crap we now see, and no one even gives it much thought.