History

Ogden’s public high school traces its roots to 1 September 1890, when the first high-school-level classes were held in a room of the city’s Central school building. Over the following decades, the school occupied successive structures as enrollment grew alongside the city’s role as a Union Pacific railroad hub and, later, a defense-industry center during the Second World War. By the mid-1930s, a purpose-built facility commensurate with Ogden’s regional importance was overdue.

The commission went to Hodgson and McClenahan, a firm that had already shaped Ogden’s architectural identity with buildings including Peery’s Egyptian Theatre and the Ogden/Weber Municipal Building. The resulting school, completed in 1937 at a cost exceeding one million dollars, was heralded nationally as the most expensive high school yet built. The Art Deco idiom was the natural choice for a building that needed to project civic confidence during the lean years of the Depression.

In 1983 the National Register of Historic Places recognized the school for its architectural significance. Two decades later, surveys revealed the accumulation of a century’s deferred maintenance: asbestos-laden materials, outdated science laboratories, and wear to the landmark auditorium and rotunda. Between 2006 and 2012, a $64 million restoration addressed all of these issues, adding a new gymnasium complex and science wing while carefully restoring the original decorative elements. The National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded the project in 2013, and the building continues to serve its educational purpose for some 1,100 students in grades ten through twelve.