North Little Rock High School

About this property

North Little Rock High School is a public school in North Little Rock, Arkansas, that is administered by the North Little Rock School District. As of the 2016–17 school year, the high school consists of one campus, which holds 9th - 12th grade. Built in 1928, North Little Rock's (Argenta's) first high school was called North Side High School, later Clendenin Hill High School (site of present-day Argenta Alternative Academy at 13th & Main Streets). In 1912, the 16 classroom Argenta High School was constructed. In 1917 450 children attended the school. The rapid northward growth of North Little Rock in the mid-1920s resulted in a doubling of school enrollment. In 1928, as the need for a new high school increased, the North Little Rock School Board selected the corner of 22nd and Main Streets as the new construction site for North Little Rock High School. As a result, North Side High School became a junior high school. The original Argenta High School facility, which included an auditorium, a gymnasium, and a recitation room, stood until its 1976 demolition. The North Little Rock High School was constructed beginning in 1928 and completed in 1930. Little Rock architect George R. Mann of the firm Peterson, William, Mann, Wanger & King designed the high school as a light colored brick and concrete building in an Art-Deco style. Between 1956 and 1959, North Little Rock High School served students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grade for nearby City of Sherwood before the construction of Sylvan Hills High School was completed. In 1970, the North Little Rock School District closed Scipio Jones High School, the segregated public school for black children, as a result of desegregation and the city established a new integrated public high school and thus integrated and renamed the then 40-year-old classic art-deco facility along Main Street as Ole Main High School and named the new facility as Northeast High School. For the next twenty years, the Northeast Chargers served as a natural rival for the Ole Main Wildcats. Then in 1990, the school district consolidated the two schools as North Little Rock High School East Campus (formerly Northeast) for ninth and tenth grades and North Little Rock High School West Campus (formerly Ole Main) for eleventh and twelfth grades. As a result of the consolidation, the schools' new mascot became the Charging Wildcats as it remains today. In 1993, North Little Rock High School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2012, the city of North Little Rock passed a millage to integrate the school into one campus for all high schoolers, grades 9-12. Construction for the new buildings and demolition of some old ones began the following school year. The district had to shuffle grades to different campuses to allow for it. The original High School still stands on the campus along with the new buildings. A new gym and football field were also constructed at this time.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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