page_title: Los Angeles High School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Los Angeles High School / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Los Angeles High School at night, LAUSD, Los Angeles, California. Español: Escuela Preparatoria de Los Ángeles en la noche 한국어: 로스엔젤레스 고등학교
context_page_description: Los Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are royal blue and white and the teams are called the Romans.
  Los Angeles High School is a public secondary high school, enrolling an estimated 2,000 students in grades 9–12. After operating on a year-round basis consisting of three tracks for ten years, it was restored to a traditional calendar in 2010. Los Angeles High School receives accreditation approval from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Concurrent enrollment programs, provided in large by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles Community College District, are offered with West Los Angeles College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, Los Angeles City College, or Santa Monica College.
  Los Angeles High School is a large, urban, inner-city school located in the Mid-Wilshire District of Los Angeles. The attendance boundary consists of a contrasting spectrum of economic diversity ranging from affluent Hancock Park and Lafayette Square to the low-income, densely populated immigrant community of Koreatown.
context_section_description: Early buildings commissioned to house the Los Angeles High School were among the architectural jewels of the city, and were strategically placed at the summit of a hill, the easier to be pointed to with pride. One of the school's long standing mottos is "Always a hill, always a tower, always a timepiece."
  Construction on Los Angeles' first public high school, (the Jesuit Loyola High School is older) began on July 19, 1872, at the former site of Central School on what was then known as Poundcake Hill, at the southeast corner of Fort Street (later Broadway), which the front of the school faced, and Temple Street, with the back of the school to New High Street (later Spring Street). The approximate coordinates are 34°03′20.44″N 118°14′36.48″W. As it was on the hill, a few hundred feet from the streets below, steep wooden stairways led up to the schoolyard.
  The two-story wooden structure was so big and grand, the finest school south of San Francisco at that time, with classic lines and a tower with a clock in it, that people traveled from miles around to see it. The teachers liked the wide corridors, walnut banisters, generous windows and the transoms over the doors.
  The schoolhouse was completed at a cost of $20,000 in 1873 (equivalent to $427,000 in 2019). Nearby, in succession, was the Court House, the City Hall, the Jones-Lindley Market and the Post Office. The first principal was Rev. Dr. William T. Lucky (1821–1876) and the first graduating class, in 1875, consisted of seven students. In 1879, a natural science club, the Star and Crescent Society, was founded at LAHS and consisted then of the entire student body. It soon left its specific focus on science and became a de facto student government and organizational body.
  In 1887, the decision was made to move the high school building to Sand Street (later California Street, now part of the Hollywood Freeway), just to the west of North Hill Street and below the south side of Fort Moore Hill, in order for the Los Angeles County Courthouse to be built on Poundcake Hill. The contractor, Mr. Hickam, said he could do the job with scaffolding, rollers, horses and workmen. But his bid turned out to be too low. He lost a considerable amount of money because of his elaborate preparations, including the high wooden trestle which carried the building over the intersection of Temple and Fort Street. Hickam managed to get the schoolhouse halfway up Temple Street when he ran out of money and left it right in the middle of the street. It was there for a good while. They jacked it up on scaffolding high enough for the Temple Street street cars to run under it. Finally, they got it moved up to its new location on Sand Street, where LAHS students and faculty remained until the second high school was built a few years later.
  The original schoolhouse remained at the Sand Street (California Street) site for many years, while in continuous use. After the high school moved out, it became a school for the lower grades. It went completely unharmed by the Long Beach earthquake in 1933, which did a lot of damage to the newer buildings in downtown. By April 1936, nearly 300 children attended school there.
  In 1890, construction began on a new red brick schoolhouse facing North Hill Street on Fort Moore Hill, between Sand Street and Bellevue Avenue (later Sunset Boulevard, now Cesar Chavez Avenue), at coordinates 34°03′30.39″N 118°14′32.84″W, which was a short distance from the older wooden one then facing Sand Street below.
  That same year, the Los Angeles City High School District was formed. It served students of LAHS while the Los Angeles City School District and various other elementary school districts served elementary and junior high school students.
  This second location atop a hill was completed in 1891 and LAHS moved in. It was an enormous building for its time. The new high school was built on part of the site of the abandoned Fort Moore Hill Cemetery, the first Protestant cemetery in Los Angeles, which was spread over the slopes of the hill. It had become neglected, practically unattended 
caption: LAHS at night in 2009
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