THE VALLEY'S FIRST HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING

in this photo: FIRST HIGH SCHOOL BUILDINGS - -These two buildings were the first of the Coachella Valley High School built in 1915-1916. The first senior class graduated here in the spring of 1916, with first classes beginning in the Fall of that year. The site occupied 10 acres given to the school district by G. H. Narbonne on Avenue 56. The site has been expanded and is still being used by the Coachella Valley Unified School District's high school facilities. (Photo taken in 1918. Coachella Valley HistoricalSociety Collection)

THE VALLEY’S FIRST HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING

By Gilberta Alderman Harmon (Narrated at Historical Days Symposium - 1980)

Perhaps an important bit of historical recording can be added to the Valley's files today by relating the story behind the building of the first structure to be used specifically for a Coachella Valley High School.

In 1913 the high school board of trustees approached my mother, Mattie Evans Alderman, about the need for more permanent facilities for high school the following two years. As there were no funds available with which to build on the land, about ten acres three miles west of Thermal, which had been given to the school district for that purpose by G. H. Narbonne on Avenue 56. (The Coachella Valley High School is still located there.)

Mother, having been a school teacher for years, was naturally concerned about housing for a school. By the way, she started teaching at 17 in a one-room school in rural Indiana. The school teacher had been horsewhipped the previous year and fled for his life from some of the big boys in that school. My mother's first year she had the experience of being tied to the flagpole and a threat was made to set it afire. Just in time (maybe) a parent drove up, to change all those plans.

Back to the request for a school building in Thermal: It was agreed that the need was for three classrooms and an assembly room.

She had the land, not the funds with which to build, but most of all she had a real desire to help solve the problem. She decided to go ahead with the project if she could be assured of its occupancy for two years.

So it was that a “gentleman’s agreement” was made, even though one of the board members, a Mrs. Allen, who was teaching in Coachella, sought the high school for Coachella even though she lived some distance below Thermal.

The year before the new building was built in Thermal, high school was taught in two places, one of which was the Thermal Baptist Church, the other in an unoccupied house in the community.

Mrs. Alderman had built a spacious assembly room (now my living room) and four classrooms, as well as a cloakroom for the boys and one for the girls. A splendid big fireplace was in the assembly room for heating in cold weather.

The first school has three teachers: Mr. George Beach was the principal with Miss Carrie Shepard from Fullerton, and Miss Mable Lehman, a Canadian. She later became a wife of Jess Wise. Miss Lehman-Wise continued to teach in the Valley for many years.

Years later Mabel recalled her second teaching year at the high school, but also recalled her first year by saying: "My! How nice it was to have that big room your mother made! The year before that building was built I taught partly in the Baptist Church belfry, where it was cramped and sometimes awfully hot! There were bats up there, too, and I hated them with a passion!"

At the close of the first year of the two-year agreement, someone, likely the person teaching in Coachella, caused to be removed from the Thermal building, to the school in Coachella, all of the material belonging to the high school. This left my mother shocked and holding the bag for the means to pay off her debt.

Again quoting Mabel: "And that next year in Coachella I had to teach in a cupboard after having that nice big room in Mrs. Alderman's building in Thermal."

Rearrangements were made to accommodate lodgers, and the next year Dr. Paul Popenoe and his bride occupied one side of the building. Dr. Popenoe and his father were among the early importers of date offshoots to our Valley and were prominent in the pioneer date industry.

In my backyard today still stands the great "Balm of Gillead” tree often mistaken for a cottonwood tree. It was planted about the time the school was built. Long gone is the backyard shelter used in those days to shade horses and ponies ridden to school by students. The original school flag pole attached to the east eave of the building is still present.

So the school building, built by my mother, was then enlarged to accommodate lodgers, among whom for years were teachers in Thermal Grammar School and teachers at the Coachella Valley High School.

Much of this may already be known by early residents of the Valley, but I am pleased to share these recollections with you. The old Hotel Thermal sign is still on the front roof, and the flag pole which flew the stars and stripes in 1913 over the Valley’s first high school building is another reminder of our history.

This story is reprinted from the January 23, 1981, issue of The Periscope, a publication of the Coachella Valley Historical Society. Copies of past and current issues of The Periscope are available for purchase for a nominal price in the Gift Shop at Coachella Valley History Museum.