High School Building - Okmulgee, OK
Posted by: 
hamquilter
N 35° 37.550 W 095° 58.547
15S E 230499 N 3946527
Okmulgee High School has a long and illustrious history.
Waymark Code: WMBJG1
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 05/26/2011
Views: 2
Of a different type of architecture - red brick with interesting white limestone trimming - the HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING, Okmulgee Ave. and 2d St., and the near-by OKMULGEE JUNIOR COLLEGE, the second largest municipal college in the state, top an educational system that comprises also ten elementary schools for white students and three for Negroes, a Negro high school, and two parochial schools." [A Guide to the Sooner State, 1941]
Okmulgee High School comprises several buildings in a full-block square, bordered by 2nd and 3rd Streets, Alabama and Okmulgee Avenues. The first of the buildings was completed during N.O. Hopkins term as Superintendent which began in 1910. By 1922, oil was discovered in the area, the town was booming, and enrollment was 5,000. A new separate cafeteria building was constructed - the only school in Oklahoma with a separate cafeteria building.
The academic building faced Okmulgee Ave. and a vocational building faced Alabama Ave., each being 3-stories high. A boys gymnasium and a vocational annex completed the complex. In the late 1920s, the academic and vocational buildings were joined by a four-story structure. The school now forms a U-shape, with the main entrance on the south.
The buildings are dark red brick with ornamental white stone which forms horizontal bands on the building, as well as decorative surrounds for the entrances. The windows are double-hung sashes with fixed transoms. They are arranged in groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 windows at different parts of the building.
In 1963 Brock Memorial gymnasium was dedicated and a new brick band building replaced the old one. The boys gym was converted into an enlarged and remodeled shop. In 1969-70 Dunbar (the black high school) and Okmulgee High School were integrated, with OHS housing grades 9 through 12 and Dunbar taking 7th and 8th grades. Today OHS has an enrollment of approximately 511 students.