History of Lake Charles High
School’s name continues to form instant bond between alumni
Don Kingery
Columnist
For those still alive who were graduates of the school during its so-called “magical” 48 years from 1903 to 1951, the name Lake Charles High School
brings up the image of an institution that was a peaceful haven while the outside world went through nearly five decades of wars, riots, turmoil and
trouble. Over the years it became more than a haven to some.
With so many close friendships, some thought of it as a second home.
The history of Lake Charles High School began in 1899 when John McNeese, the new superintendent of education for Imperial Calcasieu Parish, visited
J.B. Watkins, the largest landowner in the parish.
Seeking a site
McNeese was looking for a site to build elementary and high schools for Lake Charles in the same building. Watkins, a strong supporter of education,
sold to the Imperial Calcasieu School Board, for the sum of $800, an entire city block facing Kirby Street near downtown Lake Charles. The old Central
School stands there now, but in 1899, except for several medium-sized live oak trees, the block was covered with brush and patches of grass.
The School Board paid $15 to have the block graded, then paid an architect $50 to draw plans for an all-wood, two-story building, 47 feet wide and 78
feet long, with eight classrooms.
The School Board had $1,339 in Third Ward funds, $526 in special funds, and borrowed $1,490 from J.B. Watkins, who had sold them the block, to buy
lumber and hardware for the building. The board borrowed another $1,500 from a bank to buy desks, chairs and other furniture.
The final cost for the school, including the property, was $5,559.06.
The new Central High School and Central Elementary School, housed in the same wooden building on a city block facing Kirby Street, drew students
from Lake Charles and all over Imperial Calcasieu.
Monumental event
There was a reason the first public school was considered a monumental event. Until then, secular schools had been the only genuine source of
education. These schools were called “subscription” schools, probably because parents paid monthly fees for their children to attend.
Unfortunately, “subscription” schools gave ideas to dishonest people who collected money to start schools, then fled with the money.
Some people who called themselves teachers persuaded a group of families to rent or erect a small building, usually of logs, build an outhouse, and
contribute $1 or $2 each toward a salary of $15 to $20 a month for the teacher. Some “teachers” were half-educated. Some had no education at all for
teaching. Some teachers drank heavily.
Family members who had unhappy experiences with such “teachers” cheered when public schools appeared.
Origin of ‘Central’
The Central High School and Central Elementary School was given the name “central” because the building was located almost exactly in the center of
Lake Charles at the time.
For the first school year, 1890-’91, Professor O. S. Dolby was appointed principal with a salary of $75 a month. A first assistant for Dolby was authorized
for a salary of $30 a month, and a second assistant was approved for a salary of $40 month. The School Board minutes didn’t explain why the second
assistant to the principal made $10 a month more than the first assistant.
The combined Central schools began their first year in 1890 with 226 students and five teachers. It opened its second year in 1891 with 240 students
and six teachers.
J. E. Keeny became principal of the Central schools in 1893, and enrollment continued to grow. The tenure of teachers, however, was short. In 1892,
only two of the teachers remained who had started in 1890. The teaching staff in 1892 included Miss Louise Leveque, Miss Laura Siling, Miss Susie
Bradley, Miss Myrtle McClelland, Miss M. Burt, Miss A. M. Jenkins, and one male teacher, C. H. Buche.
On several occasions, it was necessary to hire teachers in the middle of the school year to meet the increased attendance.
Climbing enrollment
In 1897, Central High and Central Elementary had a combined enrollment of 650 students. Every classroom was overcrowded. In 1889, a new wooden
building was constructed on the south side of the Central block. Called an annex, it provided only temporary relief.
In the 1899 annual school report by Principal Grant Shaffter, 342 students were listed in the primary grades, 132 in the intermediate grades and 158 in
the grammar department.
Central High School in 1899 listed 133 students, but the growing wave in Central Elementary School made it obvious that the combined elementary-high
school buildings, in time, would burst at the seams.
As the 1900 school year began, there was no longer room for both Central High and Central Elementary in the Central block, and additional annexes
were believed to simply postpone the inevitable need for larger schools.
Superintendent John McNeese, with the help of Leon Chavanne, was already looking for a solution to the overcrowding of Central Elementary and
Central High.
Meanwhile, another school had entered the education field in Lake Charles.
Lake Charles College
The Congregationalists of the New England States built Lake Charles’ first college, with substantial help from wealthy residents of Lake Charles,
especially education advocate J.B. Watkins, who bought a major share in the college.
Lake Charles College was built in 1890 on a 13-acre city block bordered by Sixth Street on the north, Seventh Street on the south, First Avenue on the
east, and Enterprise Boulevard on the west. The magnificent building faced Enterprise Boulevard.
Lake Charles College opened on October 1, 1880, with the Rev. H. L. Hubbell of Amherst, Massachusetts, as president, and the Rev. A.R. Jones, a
graduate of Amherst College, as principal.
Elaborate commencement exercises were held for the first graduating class. The American newspaper in Lake Charles reported in 1895 that “a great
deal of fun was had by all.”
The college’s first graduating class of six included Annie Fawcett, D. B. Gorham Jr., J. Alton Foster, Lula Hoag and Hattie Fenton, all of Lake Charles,
and Flora Carroll of Merryville.
There was a problem, though. By 1897, after seven years of operation, only 70 students were enrolled at Lake Charles College.
A fatal •aw
While Lake Charles College had been built on a grand scale, with a magnificent building on an beautiful campus, there was a fatal flaw in the plan.
Lake Charles College offered the same subjects as Central High School a few blocks away on Kirby Street. That was why enrollment was booming at
Central High and static at Lake Charles College.
The leaders of Lake Charles College in Massachusetts couldn’t cope with the news that Lake Charles College and Central High offered the same
subjects. Yet Lake Charles College was expensive and Central High was free.
In the end, Lake Charles College went broke. As its biggest shareholder, it was left to J.B. Watkins to deal with the remnants.
When Superintendent of Education John McNeese arrived for a visit to discuss the overcrowding of Central High and Central Elementary, J.B. Watkins
had become the sole owner of an entire city block on Enterprise Boulevard with a beautiful but empty college on it.
After both men explained their situations, John McNeese asked J.B. Watkins what he would take for the empty college and block on Enterprise
Boulevard.
J.B. Watkins said he would take $7,000 for both.
The low price was stunning. Again, J.B. Watkins had proved his enormous support to the cause of education
McNeese, who had full authority to act on behalf of the school board in all matters involving education, quickly accepted.
Students moved
Effective for the 1903 school year, McNeese ordered the transfer of Central High students from the wooden building on the Central block to the new
college-style building on the Enterprise Boulevard block. At the same time, McNeese began planning a new brick building for Central Elementary, which
would remain on the block facing Kirby Street.
In a single stroke, John McNeese created two schools that would become legendary for the thousands of men and women it graduated who became
prominent on many fields and professions.
Lake Charles High began its life resembling a college in every respect except the ages of the students. There were Deep South colleges a half-century
old that didn’t have the beauty and atmosphere of the Lake Charles High building and campus.
At the entrance off Enterprise Boulevard, brick pillars supported an arch that led to a paved, circular drive that enclosed a plot of ground with a flagpole
in the center. Paved sidewalks beyond the circular drive were shaded by great live oaks.
Grecian columns
Eight grand Grecian columns, each two stories in height, four on each side of the entrance, added to the Roman character of the building.
There were 21 steps at the entrance. The bottom four steps spanned the entire width of the entrance area. The next five steps narrowed to the final 12
that rose between two massive pillars to reach the second-story main entrance to the school.
Directly beyond the entrance was the auditorium, with trophy cases on each side of the auditorium doors. The principal’s office and administrative offices
were on each side of the entrance. Classrooms led north and south from that point on the second floor.
Below the second-story main floor was the first floor, with the boys’ manual training shop in the north end and the girls’ home economics department in
the south end.
Between the two was a cafeteria — not unusual for a college but unheard — of for a high school in 1903. Tucked behind the cafeteria was the school’s
furnace room.
The third story was made up entirely of classrooms.
A gymnasium stood on the north end of the campus. Behind, and east, of the school building was a full-sized football field encircled by a quarter-mile
runners’ track.
Many windows
The most striking features of Lake Charles High School were the windows placed in sets of four so that every classroom, in both front and back of the
building, had either an east or west wall made up entirely of a set of four large windows.
There were three floors of windows in the school. In the front of the building, there were 36 windows on each side of the entrance, or 72 windows in all
facing Enterprise Boulevard.
On the east, or rear, of the school were another 72 windows facing First Avenue.
Patient viewers with a knack for numbers could arrive at a total, counting north and south windows on the sides of the school, of about 182 windows for
Lake Charles High School.
Traffic on First Avenue behind the school and on Enterprise Boulevard in front slowed down to look at windows. Pedestrians stopped to watch the sun
that glowed, and sometimes flashed, on the windows facing east in the morning and west in the afternoon.
The windows of Lake Charles High reflected the cold gray of wintry days, and the blues and greens of warm summer days.
At times, the school seemed alive as row upon row of windows reflected moving clouds.
Great live oaks
Live oaks shaded the public sidewalk on the east side of Enterprise Boulevard. Another grove of large oaks was located on the southwest corner of the
campus. A row of trees lined the south side of the campus, along Seventh Street.
As soon as the students, faculty and administrators got over the novelty of being a high school in a college-scale building, activities picked up.
The school sports teams chose a wildcat as their mascot. Over time, the school added a variety of sports teams, including football, basketball, baseball,
golf, track and boxing. The Wildcats excelled in football, winning several district and state championships.
In addition to cheerleading and pep squads, Lake Charles High started a marching team known as the Kilties.
Student organizations formed at Lake Charles High included the National Honor Society, Student Council, Band, Debate Club, Drama Club, home
economics and secretarial clubs, service clubs and social clubs. Singing groups competed and won in annual rallies at Southwestern Louisiana Institute
in Lafayette.
Yearbook started
Lake Charles High students produced a yearbook known as The Pelican in 1913 and 1914. Later, the yearbook became the Catalog, with the first three
letters referring to the schools mascot, the wildcat. The student newspaper was named the Wildcat.
In the early spring of 1951, a sense of peace and prosperity had settled over Lake Charles High. The school had become an institution. World War II had
ended. Peace reigned. There was a post-World War II economic boom.
Lake Charles High students felt they had a good life. Part-time jobs were plentiful. Students earned enough to go to their favorite Broad Street drive-ins
with exotic names like the Hob Nob. A few students had old cars, family leftovers from wartime that had little or no trade-in value.
Students cruised downtown Lake Charles in such cars on Saturday afternoons, taking the same slow route again and again. Gas was 20 cents a gallon.
A favorite spot for hanging out was in front of Gordon’s Drug Store on Ryan Street. Kids double-dated to attend movies at the Paramount, Arcade or and
Ritz theaters downtown, then gathered at whichever Broad Street drive-in was favored at the moment to eat 10-cent hamburgers and nickel French fries.
Lake Charles High students held part-time job everywhere. They waited on cars at driveins, bagged groceries, delivered merchandise for downtown
stores, scooped ice cream and mixed shakes at Borden’s or Watson’s ice cream parlors, mowed yards and did dozens of odd jobs.
A bright outlook
In late May of 1951, the future of Lake Charles High seemed to stretch far ahead. The seniors on campus would be the school’s 48th graduating class.
Members of the sophomore class had already begun planning a celebration for their upcoming status as the 50th graduating class of Lake Charles High.
Alumni acting as escorts for the last Homecoming Court were in their late 60s.
Lake Charles High was a landmark.
On May 27, 1951, the graduating class that gathered for afternoon Baccalaureate services watched helplessly as city firemen frantically fought a fire that
was consuming the school building.
It was hopeless. Lake Charles High burned to the ground.
There would be a new school. Lake Charles High was homeless, not dead.
A new building was erected on the Enterprise Boulevard block and the school continued for another 32 years. Its graduates went to the Korean and
Vietnam conflicts. Its alumni became industrialists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, public officials and tradesmen in every craft.
Today, Lake Charles High alumni are in most of America’s 50 states and many foreign countries. The name “Lake Charles High” continues to form an
instant bond between alumni wherever they happen to meet.
Population shift
As the city’s population shifted to south Lake Charles, enrollment at Central School dropped. Eventually, the school was closed and the building
remained empty for several years before it was refurbished and became the Central School Arts and Humanities Center.
In 1983, the School Board voted to merge Lake Charles High and W.O. Boston High schools.
The Boston school was closed and its students moved into the Lake Charles High building on Enterprise Boulevard.
The new school was named Lake Charles-Boston High School.
Lake Charles High and W.O. Boston High had both became orphans.
Boston High lost its home. Lake Charles High lost its name.
Both would eventually lose more.
In 2007, the School Board closed Lake Charles-Boston and created the Lake Charles Boston Academy of Learning in the building on Enterprise
Boulevard.
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Write Don Kingery, c/o American Press, Box 2893, Lake Charles, LA 70602, or email dkingery@americanpress. com . Timeline VI is available at
www.timelinebooks.net .
McNeese State University Archives
This was the Lake Charles High that decades of graduates remembered. Formerly Lake Charles College, which failed, it gave Lake Charles High the
most ornate high school building in the Deep South until fire destroyed it in late May of 1951.