- Eureka Schools - submitted by Mike Pitko This article appeared in a 1929 The Eureka Herald.
“The history of the Eureka school system is the history of Kansas pioneering.
When Kansas idealism was still in the making ,the first school was established in Greenwood County and in the face of adversity and under severe handicaps, the school has progressed and grown, even ahead of the times, until it has attained its present enviable position.
According to the records available the first high school was established in Eureka in 1886 and at that time a three-course program was taught. Of course, an educational system was maintained prior to that date which was on par with the general scheme of education which characterized the rural and pioneering Kansas communities at that time.
It is indeed a far cry from the old stone school building which stood where the ultra-modern Mulberry Street school now stands, to the four large well- constructed and landscaped campuses of the present- day school system of the city. (That would be Eureka High, Random, Northside and Mulberry Schools) It was a fire in 1917 which wiped out the last vestige of early day school memories when this stone structure(Mulberry School) was destroyed and proving the old adage “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” on the site of the pioneer structure has grown the present building.
The first sessions of the high school were held in the city hall (the old city hall was located on east Second Street, half a block off Main and on the northside of the street, just east of the alley) and this building was used until the high school was built in 1905 at an approximate cost of $50,000 and located at Fourth and Maple Streets. With the growth of Eureka, the high school was found to be inadequate and an addition was constructed in 1922 at an approximate cost of $70,000. It was modernized and now the building has six laboratories which are used for domestic science, domestic art, science, manual training, typewriting and commercial courses, and mechanical drawing.
The music department is an outstanding feature of the high school. A piano studio is provided and three teachers are employed. The school maintains a band, a sixty-piece orchestra, glee clubs, quartets and mixed choruses. Another institution in the high school worthy of mention is the High School Banner, a newspaper of school activities which is published every two weeks throughout the school year. It is planned and edited by the students under an instructor who has 34 college hours in journalism.
Dramatics, debating, senior plays, junior plays, operettas are interesting departments of the school. The debate team won the state championship in 1928. They also won the honors from the extemporaneous speaking at the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan.
The Mulberry Street School houses the grades for that ward of the city as well as the kindergarten department and the Junior High school.
The Random School (Seventh and Sycamore Streets) was constructed in 1922 at an approximate cost of $55,000. It has nine rooms, gymnasium, li-brary and rest rooms. The building has a capacity for 300 students. Kindergarten and six grades are taught in this building.
The North Side grade school (located on north Main Street) has a capacity for 160 students and is a four-room brick school. This is a new building erected in 1928 at a cost of $35,000.
Just a reminder that the first school for all grades was located on south School Street in the block north of River Street, on the west side of the street in 1858 by Edwin Tucker. This building burned in 1861 and the school was moved to old Fort Montgomery, located at First and Oak Streets, where Miss Anna Cutter taught at irregular intervals. There at one time was a two-story stone school “Walnut School or West Side School” located in the third block of Walnut Street, on the east side of the street. It is now a vacant lot directly behind Memorial Hall.”
