History
East High School opened in 1875 at 1731 Arapahoe Street with a total enrollment of 108 students, and was the first high school in Denver. The first graduating class was in 1877. In 1889, it moved to 19th and Stout Street because of the need for more room. This location is now referred to as "Old East," and could accommodate 700 students. The school featured a gracious flight of stairs leading to the entrance, which was notable for its sculpture of the face of a young girl, depicted as an Angel. School architect Robert S. Roeschlaub and the school board decided to use a local childhood beauty instead of a Greek face to symbolize the school's "dedication to youth." The sculptor was Preston Powers, famous for his statue of the Indian on the grounds of the Colorado state capitol. Five thousand girls across the city were visited as part of a campaign to find the model for the face, and six-year-old Ella Catherine Matty was selected. The statue was so lovely that East High school's mascot has since been the East Angels.
When "Old East" was demolished in 1925, this keystone was removed and placed in a rock garden at the current location of East, 1600 City Park Esplanade. The architect for the current facility was Denver native George Hebard Williamson, himself a 1893 graduate of "Old East" High. Williamson won national recognition for his design of the "new" East, which has a 162-foot (49 m) high clock tower modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
In early 1991, the East High building was declared an official Denver Historic Landmark by the Denver Landmark Commission and the Denver City Council. In July 2005, a music video for the song Over My Head (Cable Car), by The Fray was filmed in East High.
East was honored, in 1957, as one of the country's top high schools. Subsequently, East was selected, in 1968, as one of America’s Top Ten Schools. "In 2000 Newsweek recognized East as one of America’s top one hundred public high schools." In 2008, Newsweek recognized East again in the magazine's annual list of the country's "Top High Schools".
Read more about this topic: East High School (Denver)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)