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Cleveland Heights High School 1901-1966 page 5
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Cleveland Heights High history extends back almost to the beginning of the century, but Heights' tradition received added impetus when the new high school building was constructed at the corner of Cedar and Lee Roads. In the fall of 1924 a bond issue for $1,750,000 was passed by the citizens of Cleveland Heights to build the high school. The combined academic and technical high school was designed by Franz Warner and W. R. McCormack to accommodate 1500 pupils. Designs called for a 350 by 380 foot building with provisions for easy extension. It is thought that the technical high school in Omaha, Nebraska, served as a model for the new Cleveland Heights High School.
The probable model for Heights High
Physics
Besides 32 academic rooms and laboratories, clothing rooms, an art room and a foods room, the new high school featured an auditorium capable of seating 2,000 pupils, a library two gymnasiums, a large band room, and a stage large enough for a basketball game.
Principal E. E. Morley suggested the locker design which was later adopted and the swim team submitted a list of reasons for including a pool in the plans. Their important reasons were: (1) the lack of time for practice at the YMCA pool; (2) the expense involved; and (3) the lack of student interest in the sport because of no home pool.
The pool was included in the plans and it was an outstanding feature of the new school.
The architecture of Heights High resembles a fortress; inwardly, the operation is that of a democracy
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Courtyard 1928
Heights Castle
Heights was meant to resemble an old Tudor Castle: windows in turrets, the clock tower, the facade constructed with red brick with grey brimstone trimming - all characteristics of Elizabethan era buildings.
By 1926 the new building was completed and E. E. Morley with about 1,000 students moved from what was to become Roosevelt Jr. High to the present Heights High.
In the beginning of the first school year in the new building Miss Wallace introduced the Big - Little Sister Plan which is still in effect almost 40 years later! Kermit Roosevelt, the son of the "Rough Rider" President, appeared on the Heights stage, and his appearance heralded the beginning of many significant programs and assemblies.
Kermit Roosevelt
The voters, in 1927, approved the installation of seats in the Heights "stadium" and 5,000 seats were installed by November. A year later, Superintendent Wiley asked the school board to investigate the possibilities of safer bleachers capable of seating 10,000 spectators.
In 1928 the Tiger basketball team won the LEL championship - the first LEL major sport title in Heights history. Many more titles would follow. The golf team was the first to chalk up a victory - they won the LEL championship and finished fourth in the state that June.
Later in the spring of 1928, the Cleveland Orchestra honored Heights with a performance in the high school auditorium. A half year later the U. S. Navy Band gave a similar performance.
The school year 1928-29 was the year of Heights football supremacy. The biggest game of the year, against Shaw (then Heights' arch-rival) ended in a 0-0 tie. Later in the autumn, however, the Tigers won the LEL and district crowns while no opposing team crossed the Heights goal line.
1929 football squad - undefeated & unscored upon
Beginning its long, successful career, the band was formed in 1929 under the direction of Mark Hindsley. Band was introduced to the curriculum as a half - credit course. An innovation in the school day was the introduction of forty-minute periods and the division of the day into nine periods. The Tiger basketball team continued its success at the new school, clinching the Greater Cleveland and Sectional Champion-ships.