Boise High School Campus

About this property

Boise High School is a public secondary school in Boise, Idaho, one of five traditional high schools within the city limits, four of which are in the Boise School District. A three-year comprehensive high school, Boise High is located on the outlying edge of the city's downtown business core. The enrollment for the 2014–15 school year was approximately 1,538. The Boise High boundary includes all of Hidden Springs, downtown Boise, the North End, northeast end, and portions of Garden City. Before Boise High School, the Treasure Valley was serviced by Central High School. Opened in 1882, it cost $44,000 instead of the originally estimated sum of $25,000. Because of the cost and the fact that it was considered an overly large structure, the Central High School Board was criticized. Ironically, only a decade later 700 children overcrowded the school. Central High School was the only high school in the Idaho Territory. The high school students were placed in the top floor, while the primary, intermediate, and grammar pupils studied in the basement and the next two floors. The first graduating class of 1884 was composed of two students – Tom G. Hailey and Henry Johnson. The next year two female students and two male students graduated. In 1900, the number had expanded to 23 graduates. The new high school which replaced Central School was dubbed "Boise High School." It was not the well-known white brick building present today. It was a traditional red brick, typical of the time period. The cornerstone was laid in 1902. A pageant with 1,200 students, as many adults, and three volleys from the cadet corps marked the joyous ceremony. Mayor Moses Alexander stated Boise High School was "where the rich and the poor meet on terms of equality" (qtd. in Worbois 4). The Red Brick building, however, was terribly constructed. It was not built by local architects. Instead, the school was built by a contractor from Kansas, William F. Schrage. Idaho architects Tourtellotte & Hummel (later designers of the Idaho state capitol), along with Idaho architects Campbell & Wayland challenged Schrage and tried to raise a committee to prevent his plans. However, the committee approved Schrage's blueprints for the school. Anthony Miranda, author of the Boise High School Archive Project, states that C.B. Little, later the Superintendent of Buildings and grounds, complained, "...the class rooms were not properly lighted..." and "...they used acme plaster for the basement floors instead of Portland cement. The basement floor went to pieces" (qtd. in Worbois 5). Miranda also records that a survey of schools taken in 1919 remarked about Boise High School's ventilation: "At the high school one of the intakes is located in a hidden nook just above the level of the ground on the flat roof of the furnace room, a space which serves as a general catch-all for blowing dirt, trash, etc." (qtd. in Worbois 5, 6).

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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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