History of John R. Rogers High School


This history text is adapted from Pirate Gold, A Memory Book, a booklet commemorating the Golden Anniversary of John R. Rogers High School in 1982. Thanks to Grace (Ward) Kassa for sending the material. 

Contents:

Construction Pictures:

What’s in a Name?

From Panthers to Pirates

Who was John R. Rogers, for whom the Spokane high school is named?

Rogers was the third governor of Washington State and the first Democrat ever to be elected to that high office.

It was the name “Rogers” that brought about the switch from the Hillyard Panthers to the Pirates of Rogers. Because of its location, about a mile and one-half southwest of the Hi1Iyard High School, and because it was to draw students from a substantially expanded geographic area, early determination was made to give Spokane’s new secondary school a new identification. In fact, some thought had been given to converting the old structures into a junior high school, which would retain the Hillyard name.

Spokane school district officials determined that the school should be named to honor the originator of the Washington State “Barefoot School Boy” law, legislation mandating broader financial support for public schools and designed to assure that all children in the state would be entitled to free text books.

The name of Rogers brought to mind the “Jolly Roger” which was the black flag with white skull and cross bones flown by Pirate vessels when the buccaneers attacked other ships on the high seas. Declaring loyalty to no specific country, pirates roamed the waterways of the world, bent on capturing ships in international trade.

For a while, Spokane’s North Side Pirates retained the purple and white school colors of Old Hillyard. They subsequently replaced the white with gold to represent pirate treasure and “Pieces of Eight,” the Spanish coins that pirates of old gathered from many of their seafaring victims and reportedly buried in the New World. The Rogers emblem, while still depicting the pirate theme, has been changed and modernized throughout the years, just as the costumes and uniforms of bandsmen, Pirettes, majorettes, yell and song leaders and athletic teams have changed.

A portrait of Gov. John R. Rogers was among the first pictures to adorn the hallways of the high school. Even before the formal dedication of Rogers on March 1, 1932, the children of the early governor presented the painting to the student body. The governor’s portrait is still hanging in the main corridor of Rogers near the principal’s office. Fernand Barrett, a former Hillyard resident, who had used early photographs and drawings by other artists to create the likeness, painted it. A similar portrait of Gov. Rogers also hangs in the Legislative Building in Olympia, the state capitol.        

 In appreciation for that gift, students of Rogers planted a tree on the school grounds in the spring of 1932 honoring Edward Rogers, son of the man for whom the school is named.

His support of education, and particularly his advocacy of free textbooks, helped get Rogers elected governor. Born in Brunswick, Me., in 1838, Rogers first studied pharmacy and practiced those skills in Mississippi until the Civil War, when he moved to Illinois and became a schoolteacher.  From there he went to Kansas, where he broadened his interests to include farming, editing the Kansas Commoner, and politics. He was elected commissioner of Harvey County, but the West beckoned and he pulled stakes again.

Arriving in Puyallup, Wash., Rogers engaged in real estate and merchandising, but he still had the political bug.  He was elected to the Legislature, where he served brilliantly in the mid 1890s. So enamored was he by the capitol city of Olympia, he moved there and was elected governor in the fall of 1896, as the candidate of a coalition of Democrats, populists and “Silver Republicans.” The breach within Republican ranks both nationally and statewide that year helped send Rogers to the governor’s mansion.

He won reelection in 1900 but died of pneumonia in the first year of his second term and was succeeded by Henry McBride, the Republican lieutenant governor from Seattle who finished that term but left office in 1905.        

The Hillyard Heritage        

When Rogers High School opened its doors early in 1932, the Old Hillyard High School was forever abandoned as a part of the Spokane school system’s educational facilities. But that was not the original intent.

Consideration was being given by the school board and community leaders in 1931 to convert at least part of the school structure at Everett and Regal into a junior high school. At that time there were none in northeast Spokane. But that plan failed to materialize because of three principle factors: adverse economic conditions of the times, the aged and deteriorated condition of the buildings, and little evidence that there would be a substantial growth of the school-aged population in the area it would have served.

Hillyard High had its beginning in 1907 in the old Regal School at Rich and Regal. High school classes were held on the second floor with Milton Todd as principal. At that time, Hillyard was an independent municipality and had its own school system. Not until the town of Hillyard was annexed to Spokane in September of 1924 were its schools incorporated within the Spokane public school district.

The Regal facilities soon became overcrowded and in 1912, Hillyard citizens voted $25,000 for a new high school at Regal and Everett. That site was to accommodate both the high school and Arlington grade school that already was located there. The expanded facilities included rooms for teaching manual training and home economics and to house a chemistry laboratory. Eight seniors were graduated in June of 1913 in the new structure, but the student body continued   to grow.

In 1921, Hillyard residents went to the polls to approve another high school construction program, voting $50,000 for an annex to house additional classrooms, a gym and auditorium for the 110 secondary students. Soon after Hillyard became a part of Spokane, the city threatened to condemn the old Arlington, so the Spokane school district moved to erect a new Arlington grade school north of Francis. Some modifications were made to the old structure and it continued in use for high school classes. 

As the enrollment grew, several portable classrooms were moved to the Regal and Everett site and, because it was spread among so many buildings, the school was referred to jokingly as “Hillyard University.” It was, in fact, Spokane’s first multi-building high school complex.

A fire in 1931 that damaged the upper floor and roof of the annex helped to solidify support of the new Rogers High School among Hillyard area residents and the 800 old Hill-yard High students. In fact, prior to the move to Rogers, it often was necessary to use buckets and other containers at strategic spots because of numerous roof leaks that allowed rainwater and melting snow to pour into the structure.

Despite the extreme disrepair, the Spokane school district held onto the property for several years. During the depression period, the brick high school structure served as a community center and indoor recreation facility catering mostly to youth groups. For many years it was the home of the Hillyard Boosters, a boys’ club.

In 1943 School District 81 leased the Hillyard High building was to the Federal Housing Administration for defense housing. That agency reportedly spent more than $121,000 converting it into 51 residential apartments. In 1948, the school board paid FHA $21,000 for its interest in the building improvements to regain ownership and control of the property.

There was some discussion again in the early 1950s about converting the building back to school purposes, but nothing came of that consideration. In 1959 the three-story building and 10 lots were sold by the school district at auction to B.L. Martin for $90,500 or $5,500 more than its appraised value.

Obviously, a junior high school for the Hillyard area eventually became a reality with construction of John Shaw Junior High in 1958. Twelve years later, Garry Junior High was completed and both schools fed students to Rogers.  When Rogers was built, there were but two junior high schools in the city - Havermale in the northwest section and Libby in southeast Spokane. Only a few of the students from those two schools transferred to Rogers, as most of them enrolled in North Central and Lewis and Clark. 

The Beginning        

Despite the stock market crash in October of 1929, Spokane school officials and the students and faculty of Hillyard High School refused to give up their hope for a new high school. During the first year of the Great Depression, discussions about the $500,000 facility had gained considerable momentum.

Rogers was somewhat unique in that it was both a replacement of an existing high school and a new school because it was located and designed to serve a substantially larger geographic area and student population than did the old Hillyard facility.

The new North Side high school was not a federally funded public works project aimed at stimulating the economy. In fact, it was completed and the school was in full operation for more than a year before those federal pro-grams were instituted. Most of the construction and development costs were met from a bond issue imposed upon Spokane property owners.

That $400,000 “depression dollars” bond issue during the traumatic months following the market crash was nothing short of a miracle. Victory at the polls for the bond proposal was due to a major degree to the efforts of the faculty and students and parents of children in the northeast quadrant of Spokane. Few questioned the fact that both Hillyard and North Central high schools were getting overcrowded and that the Hillyard school was very deteriorated.  But, jobs were getting increasingly scarce and 1930 dollars were not in abundance or easily come by.

Granted, dollars went much farther than they do today. Hamburgers were a nickel and Ralph’s Clothes Shop advertised graduation suits for $15 while white pigskin grain sandals for girls were selling at the Crescent for $1.50 a pair.   Bread was 5 cents a loaf. Young women could get a permanent wave for $3. The $400,000 approved by the voters then would be equivalent in purchasing power to about $8 million in 1982 dollars.

Most of the early Rogers students entered as freshmen from nearby public and parochial grade schools, except for a few transfers from other high schools and Havermale and Libby. Those were Spokane’s only junior high schools. A majority of the students were drawn from Regal, Arlington, Whitman, Cooper, Bemiss, Hamilton and Columbia with some from Longfellow, Logan, Stevens, St. Patrick’s and St. Xavier in the city and the Orchard Prairie and Mead districts. In recent years, Hamilton and Columbia were closed, but Lidgerwood has been built and more students from Willard and Madison are coming to Rogers.

Expanded residential development throughout the area served by Rogers caused a major change in enrollments. This necessitated the construction and staffing of two junior high schools in the area: John Shaw in 1958 and Garry in 1970 -- the latter serving both Rogers and North Central. A more recent change in district policy affecting Rogers’ space and curriculum needs is the reinstitution of the four-year concept for public high schools, restricting junior highs to serving 7th and 8th grade students with no 9th grade offerings.


A New Decade - A New School

In 1930 the Spokane school board awarded a plan and design contract to Dow and Wells architects and commenced acquisition of three blocks on the south side of Wellesley between Pittsburgh and Perry for the new high school and playfield. In that same year, the city sold several of the lots it owned on that site to the school district, as did the owners of 11 houses. Ten of those improved residential lots were purchased for a total of $23,000, less than what just one comparable home in the neighborhood would sell for today.

In September the school board got court approval to acquire four remaining parcels through condemnation.  Some of the sellers moved out quickly as school board min-utes show that, before the year ended, the district had sold 11 houses (to be moved from the site or dismantled) for $3182.

After numerous meetings with educators, suppliers and others, including Hillyard principal J.D. Meyer, who had taken a special course in school construction, the architects presented preliminary plans and specifications for a school to house 800 students designed for expansion to accommodate 1,000 high school pupils. While there were numerous change orders before completion, the basic concept was pretty much what first occupants found when the building opened February 1,1932.

In Rogers, Spokane had its first high school actually designed to utilize a multi-building or campus complex concept. The original structure, however, linked the basically independent units with fully enclosed hallways. Yet, the facilities were compactly arranged to allow for future expansion.

The main wing was much as it appears today, extending 260 feet fronting on Wellesley and housing administrative offices, classrooms and science laboratories. But, it was the only part of the original building having three stories. The center wing, as at present, was occupied by the stage and auditorium with open courts on each side. The east wing housed music and office practice facilities on the first floor and art, mechanical drawing and social studies classes on the second floor. The west wing accommodated the cafeteria and kitchen on the first floor and home economics and general classrooms on the floor above. 

Behind the west wing and adjacent to the playfield area was the two-story physical education department facilities with a gymnasium, exercise and equipment rooms, locker and shower rooms and offices. A similar structure south of the east wing was for industrial arts, the heating plant and maintenance department.

Plasterboard, plastics and aluminum were not used in construction those days, so the original building had reinforced concrete walls with plastered interiors and brick exterior trimmed with terra cotta. Among Rogers unique features, for that time, were the city’s first building-wide public address system controlled from the principal’s office and the Pacific Northwest’s first 8-circuit electric signal clock which rang bells for class changes automatically.

Other publicized innovations were the city’s first inset student lockers, modern science lab fixtures and equipment, all-electric home economics kitchens, a specially designed student newspaper office, professional stage and auditorium electric light control panels and exercise equipment in the gymnasium complex.

Cost of furnishing the new school was minimized somewhat by utilizing refurbished desks, other furniture, equipment and supplies from old Hillyard High. According to news reports, classrooms had Thermax acoustical ceilings, then a new product manufactured in the Inland Empire. The school board did approve $50,420 for equipment.        

Nine Month Job

It took approximately nine months from the time the contract was let until Rogers was completed and ready for occupancy. That was remarkable, considering the many problems that confronted builders and material suppliers.  The general contract went to J.J. Lohrenz in March 1931 on a basic bid of $286,246. That figure only embraced part of the actual cost. The building permit for $400,000 did not include site acquisition costs or furnishings. Lohrenz named A.L. Atherton to be his construction superintendent on the job


Rogers construction, April, 1931
April, 1931

A unique feature of the contract, which probably would be ruled illegal today, required that local products and labor be used whenever possible. That provision became more of a burden than blessing to the contractors and school directors as it led to several court and labor disputes. Of course, the intention was to give employment to more area residents as increasing numbers of skilled workers were not working. New construction was at a minimum.

That requirement permitted Washington Brick and Lime, then owned by the Fosseen family, to supply all the brick and tile. Floor and wall tile was used more profusely at Rogers than was common in public buildings. Other local contract holders included Jensen-Byrd (hardware); O.N.  Wolff (cut stone), and John Mainati (plastering).

The school board was ready to cancel both the Lohrenz and Malnati contracts when it was found that some of the plaster used was not a local product. After considerable dickering, the board allowed use of the plaster on-hand, provided that the contractor cancelled an order for a freight car load from that supplier and buy locally.

The board probably acted in that manner to clear its own skirts, because a number of individuals and unions took actions against the school directors, charging breach of con-tract and other improprieties associated with the Rogers project. In the summer of ‘31 some unions sought an injunction to cancel the general contract held by Lohrenz. The Superior Court denied the injunction.


Rogers' Construction, Summer, 1931
Summer, 1931

Despite such hassling, construction was practically finished about mid January of 1932 and John Henry (Jack) DuChenne, Rogers’ first custodian and engineer, fired up the boilers to dry out the building. The first public use of the new high school happened before classes moved into the building. It was a unique event - commencement exercises for the graduating   class of January 1932. Thus, the first students to receive diplomas from Rogers High School never attended a single class session at the school. They completed their studies at the old Hillyard high, yet the graduation certificates presented those 54 young women and men showed them to be graduates of John R. Rogers.

Rogers' Construction, October, 1931
October, 1931

Furnishings and supplies were moved in during the brief mid-term break so that the school could open its doors to students for the first time on February 1,1932. Twenty-three years later, DuChenne recalled on the occasion of his retirement as Rogers chief engineer, that the first scholar through the doors on that extremely cold day was one Phronie Hooper. The new school was crowded from the outset with 1035 students and a faculty of 35 headed by Principal Meyer.

Formal dedication of Rogers took place in the school auditorium on March 1, 1932. Among the program participants were N.D. Showalter, state superintendent of public education; Orville C. Pratt, Spokane school superintendent, and School District 81 board members: Evan Berg, chairman; Kate Kimpson, buildings and grounds committee chairman; Roy Redfield, Alex Turnbull and Dr. T.D. Burger. Also attending were city officials and student representatives from other high schools and junior high schools of Spokane.  


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