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410 Fourth North And After
The first building known as Edmonds High School opened at 410 Fourth Avenue North, Edmonds, in 1909, two years after voters had approved a $30,000 bond issue for its construction. The two-story brick building, done in Neo-Classical style, stood alone on its two-acre site. The first graduation ceremonies were held in 1910, for three seniors. The original school colors were purple and gold.
In 1921 two brick wings were added on the school's north and south sides with money provided by a $78,000 bond measure. A federal WPA grant for $112,500 was received in 1939, which helped pay for an additional project consisting of an Art Deco style auditorium and a gymnasium. Sometime later, several buildings were constructed to provide space for shops and agriculture classes. In 1954 a detached music building was constructed on the southwest corner of the school site.
The class of 1957 was the last four-year class to graduate at the original site. A burgeoning student population having outgrown the old building, a new building in a sprawling, campus style designed to house 1,200 students opened in November of that year at Holmes Corner, near the intersection of 212th St. and 76th Ave. W.
From late 1957 to 1975, the building formerly known as Edmonds High School became Edmonds Junior High. In 1975, school district officials closed the junior high and in 1977 sold the property to Puget Sound Christian College. The college operated at the site until 2001, when it moved, first to Mountlake Terrace and later to Everett. Much of the original building was later demolished, but its auditorium, renovated in 2006, has become home to the Edmonds Center for the Arts.
In 1990, with enrollment declining, Edmonds High School closed and merged with Woodway High School to form Edmonds-Woodway High School. The newly created institution was housed temporarily in the old Woodway building at 2300 100th W., just south of Edmonds' Westgate area. In 1998, Edmonds-Woodway High School moved to a newly constructed building at the old Holmes Corner site. The building, which has received numerous regional and national design awards, cost roughly three thousand times as much as the original 1910 EHS structure.
Sources:
Diane Brooks, Old Edmonds High: a place of learning for 9 decades, The Seattle Times, 2005
Wikipedia (article authored by Janet Burkitt)
HistoryLink.org
Edmonds, The Gem of Puget Sound, by Ray Cloud
Contributed by Dick Curry and Bruce Evans
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