Unionville High School, The Graphic, 1946, Page 7

Description:	HISTORY OF UNIONVILLE HIGH-SCHOOLIn the year 1916, a movement to build a high school was started in Benton Township.Bands of speakers, composed of both the young and the old, traveled over the township telling the people of the benefits of a high school. Before Unionville High School was built,students desiring a high school education had to go to Bloomington to get it.However, nothing material developed from the movement until 1921. In that yearUnionville High School was built and C. A. Martin was selected as principal. Under hisguidance, the high school progressed until it became a model school. The high school wasplanned beautifully and contained details and conveniences unthought of in other high schoolsat that time. To have a six year high school was then a new idea. Typing and manual training were subjects taught at U. H. S. that helped it win the title of being a model school.When the doors opened that first September, there were 24 students enrolled. Now wehave 121 students. In addition today we have 97 grade school children in the same building.Then there were two full time and two part time teachers. Now we have eleven. There weretwo typing students. They furnished their own typewriters and typed in the office. Thetypewriter tables were made in the manual training class, and we still have in use some ofthose tables. For several years typing students had to furnish their own tables and typewriters.There were three rooms in the upstairs portion of the building: an assembly roomwhich is now rooms 12 and 13, the home economics room which is now room 15, and thelibrary which is now the typing room. The five long narrow tables we now use occasionally, were built as library study tables. The assembly had folding doors which were usedas a temporary partition for the creation of two class rooms.The “gym” was located in the basement where the home economics and furnace roomsare now. Some of the early basketball stars of Unionville are able to exhibit scars frominjuries they received when they “met” the concrete walls or floor of this “gym”. Thefurnace and manual training rooms were where the present fourth and fifth grade room is.The “coke” room was then the coal room. The sunshine room was then the green carpet.In 1924 the community gymnasium was built with money and labor donations made bythe teachers/and people of the community. This gymnasium was built with no bleachersand no stage. The outside walls on the ends were the same as they are today without thestage part. The side walls were where the posts now stand in front of the bleachers.Spectators stood about in this narrow space. On each side of the building there was asmall stove, the heat from which charred the above mentioned posts. There was no insideceiling material for the walls as we have today, and you can imagine how inadequate theheat was. The roof leaked when there was a hard rain and the water would freeze on thefloor. Game officials had a small platform, which had been erected high up near the roofacross one corner of the “gym”. It would hold only about four or five people, and oneclimbed to it by way of a ladder. Here a student kept score by means of flaps on whichnumbers had previously been painted.In 1927 the space taken up by the bleachers on the south side of the “gym” was addedand removable bleachers, made of rough lumber, were first used here. There were additional bleachers of the same type put up in the end of the “gym” in case of a play. At theopposite end was installed at such times a movable stage. If you think the present stageis somewhat noisy, you should have heard tap dancers on that one. At the same time .underneath the bleacher section on the south side, there were built our present dressingrooms and showers. A furnace was also installed.At a later date an addition was built on the north side and the permanent bleachersinstalled on both sides of the b uilding. The permanent stage was also built then. Since,all of the ceiling material on the outside wall has been added.
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-unionville/id/300
Collection:	Unionville High School

Further information on this record can be found at its source.