Overview
Washington High School was a high school in Portland, Oregon, United States, from 1906 to 1981. After fire destroyed the original building, a new building was completed in 1924. The school merged with Monroe High School in 1978 to become Washington-Monroe High School. The school closed shortly after in 1981. A few years later it was used as the Children's Services Center, a mulitpuropose social service facility that also provided day care and other programs for at risk youth. After that the building was vacant for many years. It was also used for a time as a location for administrative offices for the Portland Public Schools.
During a brief time around 2005, Washington High School was used as a temporary site for the relocation of some of the newly arrived survivors from Hurricane Katrina. In 2009, it was used as the site for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art's Time-Based Arts Festival or TBA. In October 2013, plans to renovate the building for commercial use were advancing, with a mix of retail and office use planned. New Seasons Market relocated its offices to the building in 2015 and is the largest tenant. The former auditorium was repurposed as a music venue called Revolution Hall, which opened in February 2015. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 2015.
School history
The first Washington High School was originally named East Side High School. It opened in September 1906, with classes temporarily held in an elementary school while its permanent building was being constructed and moved into its permanent building in February 1907, located at SE 14th and Stark. The East Side High School was renamed Washington in 1909. The original building was destroyed by fire on October 25, 1922. A replacement was constructed on the same site, made of reinforced concrete with a brick surface. Designed by the Portland architectural firm of Houghtaling & Dougan, the new building also featured terra cotta trim. It opened for students on September 2, 1924.
Due to the baby boom and passing of a $25 million building levy by the school district in 1947, a new gymnasium was slated to be built.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).