The corner stone of the Central building was laid in August, 1868. This building was destroyed by fire in October, 1869. The construction of a new building on the old foundation began as soon as plans were completed. This was the three-story brick building, costing $35,000, torn down in 1908, to make room for the magnificent high school building completed in 1910, and occupied for all school purposes in September of that year. On October 5, 1892, the name was changed to “The Ingalls School.”
The building begun in 1869 and, when completed, said to be “one of the finest in the State,” was opened in 1870 and served without change till 1903, when a three-story addition, costing $5,264.00 was built to provide for the office, manual training, one high school room and sanitary fixtures. It was finally outgrown after serving thirty-eight years. While the present building was being constructed, the high school was housed in the old three-story Douglas building, Fifth and R streets, and in two rooms of the old Washington building, Sixth and Q streets.
During the two years’ waiting for the new Ingalls building the colored pupils from Douglas school were housed in a vacant store at Sixth and Spring streets for one year, and in Lincoln school for part of the second year, and the grades of Ingalls school were housed as follows: Seventh and eighth, banquet room of Odd Fellows Hall; sixth, Martin school; fifth, Pioneer Hall; second, third and fourth, basement of Congregational church; first, basement of Presbyterian church; manual training, in old fire department for the first year, and in a vacant store room till the latter part of December of the second year, when it was moved to the new building.
The present high school building, the Ingalls school, cost about $103,500. The equipment and added lots at the southwest corner of the block, improvement of grounds, etc., will bring the present value of the property at least to $130,000.
Governor George W. Glick was largely instrumental in the work of securing the lots for the Ingalls school. The ten lots purchased prior to the erection of the first building cost, approximately, $3,500. Lots 8 and 9 in the same block secured by condemnation in 1911, cost $2,250.
The three-story brick building at the corner of Fifth and R streets, built in 1873 at a cost of $15,000, was originally called Washington school. A three-room, one-story frame building, erected on this site in the middle sixties, was the first building owned by district No. 1, and served till 1873. The lots cost $1,200 and the building $2,425. At that time a frame building at the corner of Sixth and Q streets was used by the colored pupils and was called Douglas school. This was built in the middle sixties. It was at first a two-room, one-story building. Later, a third room was added. The lots cost $820. This was the second building owned by district No. 1. Early maps of Atchison show the locations of Washington and Douglas here given.
The names “Central,” “Washington,” “Franklin,” “Lincoln” and “Douglas” were authorized February 2, 1880.
In 1884 work began on two new buildings, one a ten-room brick building to take the place of the frame building called “Douglas,” and the other an eight-room brick building at Sixth and Division streets, named North Atchison school. The one at Sixth and Q streets cost $18,682, and was occupied for school purposes January 5, 1885. The white pupils in “Washington” school were taken to the new building, and the colored school formerly housed in “Douglas” was taken to the “Washington.” The names were also transferred soon after the new order of things was established.
The ten-room Washington building was used till the close of school for vacation, December, 1913. On January 5, 1914, the school began work in the present beautiful building, south of R street, between Fifth and Sixth streets. The old property at Sixth and Q streets was sold for $2,300, but the name of the school was retained. The new building with grounds and equipment cost $63,000. The site was secured by condemnation and cost $5,350.
The original “Washington” remained the “Douglas” until the completion of the new Douglas on Sixth, between U and V streets. The pupils of “Douglas” were housed in “Lincoln” till late in the fall of 1909. The site of this building, lots 18, 19, 20 and 21, block 35, South Atchison, was secured in March, 1909, in exchange for lots 10 and 11, same block, the old hospital property, which had previously been donated to the board of education for school purposes, the money involved being the payment of some back taxes by the board.