Northeast High School – Oklahoma City

Address:	3100 North Kelley, Oklahoma City, OK.	County	Oklahoma
Started	1935	Completed	Sept 7, 1937
Agencies:	PWA, WPA	NRHP:

Current Usage:

Description:

In 1935, a proposal was submitted and approved by the Board of Education of Oklahoma City Pubic Schools to build a high school in the northeast quadrant of the city.  Northeast High School was erected on a plot of land at 3100 North Kelley, and opened its doors on September 7, 1937.   Isolated in a location of few houses and no paved streets, surrounded by trees and oil wells, approximately five hundred students waded through mud to the boardwalk that led to the front door of the school to a building whose ceilings and floors were incomplete. Classes were opened and dismissed by use of a gong and board and under the direction of twenty-four faculty members.

Mr. J.B. Greene was the first principal of Northeast High School, and he served in this capacity from 1937 until 1958.  Under his leadership, the gymnasium and several classroom additions were built in 1940-41.[1]

Northeast High School occupied a gym and four classrooms added with WPA funds, after the original building of Carthage stone was made possible with a PWA grant. The school board used WPA funds for excavating to make the Northeast High School property ready for construction, and again for work around the school after it was finished. It has not been determined if any WPA labor was used in the initial building phase.

Northeast High School was slated to be one of the city’s most beautiful public schools when completed, according to a newspaper article at the time. The school currently serves as a ‘Science Academy.’ Once called ‘way out in nowhere,’ it is now close to many state office and service buildings.”[2]

Photograph used for a newspaper owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Caption: “No Half Days Now! Poorly lighted and ventilated basement rooms where school children of Oklahoma City attended in half day sessions, have been abandoned since the city, with the aid of a grant allotment of $133,000 from Public Works Administration, built this now school and made needed repairs for several others.”[4]

Sources:

1. Northeast Academy, website
2. The Living New Deal
3. Oklahoma Landmarks Inventory Database
4. [Photograph 2012.201.OVZ001.8766], photograph, Date Unknown; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1701589/: accessed July 27, 2022), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.

Supported Documents:

Photos:

• https://www.metrolibrary.org/archives/image/2020/05/northeast-high-school
• https://www.metrolibrary.org/archives/image/2020/09/northeast-high-construction