The origins of formal education in Snohomish can be traced to the living room of Mary Low Sinclair. Mary, whose husband Woodbury had purchased a land claim at a remote logging outpost then known as Cadyville, opened her home in the summer of 1869 and invited childhood friend Ellen "Robie" Willard to teach local youth. Willard taught one term alongside Mary Sinclair, who translated for the children of indigenous mothers, many of whom spoke no English. Ten students enrolled that summer, out of 21 eligible youth. The following year, the school population almost doubled, jumping to 18 attendees. Twenty-five years on, in 1894, Snohomish honored its first high school graduates: five men and six women. The anniversary marked a beginning, that of secondary education in the district as well as of Snohomish High School’s rich legacy. From humble origins, the school has grown into an institution renowned as much for academic and athletic excellence, as for its deep roots in tradition and local history.
Expansion & Growth
Logging drove the region’s rapid growth and Cadyville soon became Snohomish City. Mary and Woodbury Sinclair donated one of their newly platted city blocks at the northeast corner of Pearl and Cedar Streets to be used for a school. A modest one-room schoolhouse was completed in 1874 and outfitted with "the latest improved seats, wall maps, etc." (Missimer letter to Houghton). As the only school in Snohomish County, students commuted from as far away as Monroe and Mukilteo, often boarding with families in town. A second classroom was added a decade later.
In December of 1888, a special election was held to vote on a tax levy intended for an even larger school on a hill overlooking town. It passed 49 to 5. After Washington achieved statehood in 1889, even more funding for public education became available. Well-resourced, including with lumber donations from the Blackman Brothers mill, the Central School became a home to both elementary and secondary students. The school welcomed its first class in August 1889. By 1891, the student population was 340, under the supervision of eight teachers and one janitor. Such growth necessitated a four-room addition to the newly built school.
A high school program led by Mrs. E. C. Granger had been attempted in 1885, but it struggled to stay funded with public dollars. High school was not yet mandatory and only 6 percent of eligible students pursued secondary education in 1890. By 1900, attendance had risen to 11 percent. With the population still growing, the district wanted to hire a principal who could offer a more robust and attractive high school program, in addition to elementary. Their first choice, J. S. Adams of Ohio, agreed to the role but never showed up for work. Two other professors stationed in Sultan and Kirkland were appealed to, but they too declined. Consequently, school began in the fall of 1891 without a principal, and would-be high school students were placed in remedial classes. Finally, in late December, the school board hired Professor R. H. Van Horn of Wainsburg, Pennsylvania.
Upon arrival, Van Horn instituted strict rules. He reduced recess time, banned play on campus before class started, and required students to march militarily between classrooms. His ways were immediately criticized in the local newspaper The Eye as "too German." The news editor took issue with Van Horn’s high school curriculum, writing: "It would dismay old settlers who got their education from three or four textbooks ... [that] something like 100 books are required for the high school course" (Schuler, 12). Under the new program, students could choose between a two- or four-year course, with classes in arithmetic, algebra, Latin, English literature, botany, geology, chemistry, and zoology. Though reactions to his leadership were mixed, a state senator surveying schools in April 1893 proclaimed, "Van Horn has evolved order out of what was chaos. Discipline is a success and tardiness has been reduced to a minimum" (Schuler, 13).
The commencement ceremony for the first high school class was held June 8, 1894. Under a banner with their motto "Onward & Upward," the 11 graduates (Edward and Emma Creuger [who later became Snohomish’s first librarian], Vesta Lord, Tennis Thurston, Marion McNaughton, Alonzo Brown, Agnes Mittlestadt, Daniel Jackson, Gertrude Fenderson, John Partee, and Joseph Bird) accepted their diplomas from the altar of the Congregational Church. The pews and archways were bedecked with crepe paper in the class colors of pale blue and shrimp pink. Two years later, graduates selected crimson and white, which would become the school’s official colors.
The high school was deeply woven into the social fabric of the town, with the students’ advanced training inviting many opportunities to engage with the community. Students in Fire Club served as volunteer firefighters; Glee Club provided Friday entertainment for the Atheneum Society; sports teams practiced in the skating rink or Second Street armory; and bookish students worked as support staff at the Carnegie library. After 1906, class receptions, dances, and graduation events were held in the ballroom of the Eagles Building on First Street.
The Early Years: 1900-1930s
By 1888, the railroad had arrived in Snohomish, bringing hundreds of families seeking jobs, land, and fresh air on the Pacific Northwest seaboard. In 1900, public school enrollment in District 1 surged to 593, with a notable increase in upper-grade students, nearly doubling from 42 to 74. In 1905, voters approved a 10-mill tax ($10 per $1,000 of property value) to build or purchase a site for a new senior high school. By July 1906, the district had acquired the former headquarters of the Puget Sound Academy. The stately building was a courthouse when constructed in 1890, with no expense spared for sandstone sourced from the Chuckanut quarry in Bellingham and brick from the Bast brickyards in Snohomish. It had become a private school in 1897, after the county seat was moved to Everett. The Puget Sound Academy, indebted and struggling to maintain its enrollment, sold the building, its furniture, and four acres of land for $7,500.
"The old courthouse, or academy building, as it has long been called, stands in the very heart of the residence district," the Everett Herald wrote, after the purchase. "The site is ideal for a school, and by properly planting trees and laying out walks, the four acres will soon become a beautiful campus and take the place of a city park, something that is badly needed" (Schuler, 31). That summer, the Cosmopolitan Club held a field day, gathering everyone in the community "to pull stumps, carry away rocks, and arrange flower beds" (The Panther). The lot was transformed into "the most beautiful, flower-decked lawn in the state" (Schuler, 31).
The first graduating class from the new high school was the largest to date, now numbering 16 pupils. In the years following the move to the new campus, the high school expanded in many ways. First, it added a vocational training course: domestic science. One graduate recalled, "We started with sewing pot holders, darning stockings, [and] planning menus. At the end of the four years we made suits. In cooking classes we had to eat what we cooked so we would do our best!" (Schuler, 75). Shorthand and typing were added in 1908, followed by an award-winning agricultural science program in 1911 that launched nearly all of the family farms still active in Snohomish today (Bailey, Thomas, Stocker, etc.). As departments and curricula grew, the high school expanded physically too, adding a blacksmith shop, woodshop, tennis courts, and a fifth-mile cinder running track with pole jumping pits on the southern edge of campus.
By 1917, the United States had entered World War I and many senior boys left school early for military service. A Class of 1917 grad, Stella Maddox Huffman, wrote: "When we neared graduation, many of our boys were either in service or numbered with the war dead. The high school made a large service flag with a star for every man killed. My nearest neighbor was killed in the service the day the Armistice was signed" (Schuler, 75). To help fill the hallways, eighth-grade students were temporarily moved from Central to the high school. The 1918 graduation had 30 students, though only a third were male. That year, 114 current and former SHS students were actively serving in the military.
A strong sense of identity and school spirit developed in the years following the war. The first yearbook had been issued in 1904, inspiring more frequent, small journals like the Pepper Box and the Enterprise, collections of stories, jokes, ads, and social updates written by past and present students. The Arrowhead, the school’s official newspaper, was first published in January 1925. In 1926, a panther was chosen as the athletic mascot. According to legend, a student’s father was a frequent buyer of boot heels from the Panther Rubber Manufacturing Company. One day he brought a black panther advertising sign from the company and installed it in the high school’s hallway. This was the first known imagery of the school’s defining icon.
Concern about physical fitness also grew after the war. Nearly a third of young men had been rejected from military service for being physically unfit. This convinced local voters to pass a levy funding a new school gym. State lawmakers then added a requirement for twice weekly 45-minute physical training periods for all students. Sports programs, discontinued during the war, were reinstated, and the district added three more tennis courts and a larger track with fields for football and baseball.
The Great Depression strained the district’s resources. With fewer jobs available for young people, more students enrolled than ever before, choosing to pursue secondary education with their free time. Meanwhile, low tax revenue led to slashed salaries. Teachers weathered a 10 percent pay cut and even offered up full day's wages to help fund essential maintenance and subsidized lunch programs. In 1935, federal stimulus funds arrived to alleviate some of the pressure. Thanks to the Works Progress Administration, the district was able to provide jobs and build a new sports stadium, music building, and a stand-alone junior high just west of the senior high building. By that point, all students in grades 7-12 were attending SHS. The new building would offer 10 classrooms, an office, and a full-size gym capable of seating 1,700 people.
Construction on the junior high (later called B-Building) began in 1937, but work came to an abrupt halt after federal officials condemned the old courthouse section of the school. Federal funds would be frozen until the alleged fire trap’s safety issues were dealt with. The structure was deemed "one of the worst in the state," owing in large part to its furnace set in a room topped by deteriorating, oil-soaked wood floors ("Snohomish County Tribune Supports ..."). It was also guilty of overcrowding and poor ventilation. In June 1938, the original courthouse building was dismantled. It was replaced with a new "A-Building."
Mid-Century: 1940s-1960s
The Class of 1940 was the first to graduate from the new high school building. Sadly, many students had left senior year early when local troops were drafted during World War II. While the community was confident in America’s success in the war, the harsh reality of human sacrifice could not be ignored. More than 50 students and alumni lost their lives in battle.
The school’s curriculum adapted to war needs, with an emphasis on manual training. Increasing interest in science and technology spawned courses in radio, aircraft construction, and electricity. Also introduced was a student driver’s education program, thanks to donations from local car dealerships. Meanwhile, extra-curricular activities like drama and field trips suffered from wartime restrictions. Bus routes were cut and evening football games were discontinued.
Undaunted, Panther athletic programs continued to pursue new records. The football team’s illustrious winning spree had begun two decades earlier, but it went undefeated during the 1944 season, thanks to captain Keith Gilbertson, who returned after graduation to teach and coach for Snohomish. Alongside Dick Armstrong, known as the winningest coach in Washington state high school football history, the duo secured 243 wins, including two state championships (1976, 1978) for the Panthers. Other major league athletes who started their careers as Panthers include the Earls of Snohomish: Earl Averill Sr. (an outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1976); his son Earl Jr. (a catcher for the Indians, Cubs, White Sox, and other teams); and Earl Torgeson (a 1941 graduate who spent 15 years playing for five major league teams, including the White Sox, Braves, and Yankees).
In 1948, Snohomish High School was recognized as one of the top 20 public schools by the Washington State Education Board. Ten years later, the district received first class status, a classification based on enrollment and population. With it, the district became responsible for financial functions that had previously been managed by the county. Accounting, payroll, and record keeping now had to be done by school district employees, but notably not school board members, principals, teachers, or secretaries. Instead, the district was required to hire a suite of administrative professionals. To the taxpayer, education was becoming increasingly expensive and more complicated.
Enrollment continued to climb post-war and a strong economy allowed for classroom additions to the B-Building and boosted salaries for teachers. In January 1953, the first homecoming celebration was held during halftime of a basketball game. The modest ceremony was switched to football season the next year and, in 1959, the first homecoming parade marched through the streets of town. The tradition continues as the annual Serpentine, one of only a few occasions in the state where students leave class to celebrate school spirit with their community.
In 1960, the high school served 955 students and, by the end of the decade, that number would be well over 1,500. Several teachers had no homeroom and moved between spare rooms throughout the day. With the student population expected to double in the next five years, the district purchased a 30-acre site on Fobes Hill to use for a future second high school. The following year, the district celebrated its anniversary: Snohomish schools had come a long way in their first 100 years.
Modernization: 1970s-1990s
Students of the 1970s and 1980s were faced with the twin forces of globalization and modernization. A controversial war in Vietnam and a nation-wide economic recession increased challenges for the schools as strapped taxpayers rejected levy and bond issues. An increasingly rebellious youth culture vandalized campus infrastructure. Yet, the district was able to expand special education programs and introduce an alternative education program, as well as open its doors to exchange students from around the world.
Snohomish County in the 1970s was one of the fastest growing regions in the country. Thousands of people, many with young families, were leaving cities for suburbs and exurbs and the high school prepared for massive growth. In 1966, a vocational building was added for agriculture classes, radio, and cosmetology. Five years later, the Spud Nut cafe building across Fifth Street was remodeled into a food training center, with two classrooms, one for merchandising and one for food preparation. Soon after, a new Performing Arts Center was completed. In 1971, the largest graduating class to date (315 students) could not fit in the gymnasium, so the ceremony was moved to the Evergreen Fairgrounds in Monroe. By the end of the decade, SHS would squeeze 1,856 students into a campus built for 1,300.
Despite the cramped campus, the community consistently opposed opening a second high school, mainly for fear of splitting the strong, oft-winning athletic teams. Thus, development focused on adjustments to the existing school and the second campus property was eventually sold. In 1981, the A-Building was heavily modernized and an earlier addition demolished to make room for a larger gym, cafeteria, student center, and sunken courtyard. Below ground, a construction crew discovered large stone-arched openings and vertical metal bars, the last remaining vestiges of the original courthouse jail.
A New Era: 2000s-Present
The new millennium brought significant change to Snohomish High School. In 2004, voters finally approved the idea of a second high school, as well as the bond to build it. This time, the second campus was located south across the valley, where the majority of suburban development had taken place. The opening of Glacier Peak High School four years later marked a new era for the district, not only in scale of educational infrastructure, but in its ability to maintain a sense of tradition and community across two senior highs and a student population that now breached 2,000.
On the Snohomish High School campus, D-Building opened up 26 new classrooms to replace the music, vocational, and science buildings. The historic A-Building was renovated once again in the summer of 2009, and a new auxiliary gym with weight rooms was added on to the main gym. The 1970s-era Performing Arts Center was demolished and a much grander one built on the same site. By 2012, the library and administrative offices had moved into a brand new version of B-Building, completing a comprehensive upgrade of the high school campus.
The Class of 2009, the one from which this author graduated, was the largest in Snohomish High School history. A total of 591 students, as well as their closest friends and families, packed the Everett Events Center that June for the largest commencement ceremony the district had ever seen. Bedecked with red, white, and modern jumbo-screens, the affair looked dramatically different from the 1894 graduation of the school’s first 11 students. Yet the fervor of school pride was much the same. This would be the last graduating class from Snohomish’s tradition of being a one-high school town.
