Rocket Man
Karen Grassle
Karen Ewing
Class reunions
40 years later
Brown Bag reunions
2002
Ventura High School Alumni Foundation
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A brief history of
Ventura High SchoolThe San Buenaventura School District -- formerly School District No. 1 of Santa Barbara County -- originally included all of what is now Ventura Co
unty. A student census in 1865-66 showed 372 white children and 11 Indian children of white guardianship . Four students attended private schools and 309 children didn't attend any school. (For a bigger picture of the administration building, click here.)
The first school was an old adobe home on West Main Street. The first schoolhouse built as a school was Canyon School or School House No. 2, which was built in 1866 near Ventura and Harmon avenues.
The first high school class was organized in 1873, but the first high school was not established until 1889, with the class meeting in one of the upstairs rooms of Plaza School at Fir and Santa Clara streets. The first graduation exercise was in 1890 in the Presbyterian Church.
The Ventura Union High School District was established in 1891 to serve students of San Buenaventura, Avenue and Mound school districts. The present Ventura Unified School District, serving grades kindergarten-12, was created March 16, 1965, effective July 1, 1966.
The first high school building opened in 1897 in the area bounded generally by Santa Clara, Ann, Main and Hemlock streets. In May 1912, the Ventura Free Press announced that the high school would provide college courses if students "demanded" them. But it didn't happen until 1925, when the college was created as the Ventura Junior College Department of Ventura High School. That school was at what is now the Cabrillo Middle School campus, formerly Cabrillo Junior High School.
A $400,000 school bond was passed in 1928 to buy the 14.27-acre Hill Estate on Main Street for a new high school/junior college campus. The new school, at 2155 E. Main Street, opened in 1930. The campus provided a four-year education (junior and senior years of high school and freshman and sophomore years of college) from 1929 to 1952. A 17-acre farm and several residential lots were bought in 1934 to expand the campus.
Although it stayed on the Main Street campus, the college's name was changed to Ventura Junior College in 1936. For several years, the name came to stand for the junior and senior years of high school and freshman and sophomore years of college. The junior college absorbed the high school in 1936.
World War II, of course, brought major changes to the college. Athletic and student activity programs were curtailed in 1942 because of rationing. By 1943, the size of the faculty was cut by 50 percent as both men and women joined the armed forces. In 1944, only 56 students were enrolled in freshman and sophomore college courses, and by 1945 only nine students (only one of whom was male) remained. Seventy-one of the college's students or graduates were killed during the war.
Construction of the Telegraph Road college campus started in 1952, and the college was renamed Ventura College (Anacapa College and San Buenaventura College were rejected). The college moved during the spring recess of 1955, classes began the day after Easter and the campus was dedicated April 29, 1955.
That left the former joint site with only the high school classes.
The college was the original tenant of the ivy-covered, red brick administration building that was a landmark for the campus and the city. The building was torn down during our time at Ventura High -- I haven't been able to find the exact date, but the demolition is briefly mentioned in the 1958 yearbook -- because it didn't meet earthquake standards. Old timers, however, still remember how hard it was to knock the building down with a wrecking ball.
Primary sources:
1. End of an Era, San Buenaventura Elementary School District, 1965-1966, the district's last annual report.
2. A History of School Organization and Administration in Ventura County, by John Allan Rogers, 1961, a USC doctoral dissertation.
3. Ventura College: A 75 Year History, prepared by Ventura College Dean Gary Johnson for an exhibit at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art in 2000.