Gone But Not Forgotten: Winchester High School

January 5, 1925 was a fate­ful day.  The open­ing of the spring semes­ter saw Winchester kids, who had been attend­ing the ven­er­a­ble Hickman Street School, begin fill­ing the halls of a brand new build­ing at the cor­ner of Burns Avenue and Colby Road.

The new Winchester High School incor­po­rat­ed the lat­est con­struc­tion meth­ods, mak­ing it one of the most mod­ern school build­ings in Kentucky.  It was the first steel-framed build­ing in the city.  Its con­struc­tion was over­seen by Winchester’s mas­ter builder, Newton A. Powell.  With fif­teen class­rooms, it was designed to accom­mo­date grades 7 through 12.

Financed by a $150,000 bond issue, the build­ing was not quite com­plet­ed when it opened.  That spring it was still miss­ing an assem­bly hall and gym­na­si­um.  A gym­na­si­um would have been nice.  Under their new coach, Walter “Rip” Van Winkle, the boys’ bas­ket­ball team com­piled a sea­son record of 20–1.  That March the team made it to the state tour­na­ment, los­ing only to Louisville Manuel in the cham­pi­onship game.  Rip, who had been a star ath­lete at Kentucky Wesleyan College, also coached foot­ball and girls’ basketball.

A major change came about in 1956.  Winchester High had been a school for white kids only, and Oliver High was the school for blacks.  The deci­sion in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) stat­ed that “Separate but equal edu­ca­tion­al facil­i­ties for racial minori­ties is inher­ent­ly unequal” and, hence, uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.  Winchester soon began the process of inte­grat­ing its schools.  In the fall of 1956, African American high school­ers from Oliver began attend­ing Winchester High. 

I only got to be in the build­ing one time.  In December 1957 I came over with some of my sev­enth-grade friends to watch the Mt. Sterling Trojans play the Winchester Shawnee.  We lost the game but were impressed by the fine gymnasium. 

Another momen­tous change was the 1960 deci­sion to con­sol­i­date, merg­ing the city and coun­ty schools.  When George Rogers Clark High School opened on Boone Avenue in 1963, old Winchester High closed for good. 

The school board opt­ed to keep using the build­ing, how­ev­er, and thus was born Belmont Junior High School.  The junior high last­ed until 1990, and then the build­ing in quick suc­ces­sion became the Belmont Alternative School fol­lowed by the Belmont Continuing Education Center.  The end came in 1996 when the Clark Extended Education Center opened on Vaught Road.

The school board judged the now-emp­ty build­ing too expen­sive to upgrade and repur­pose.  In spite of cit­i­zen appeals to save the old school, the board decid­ed the build­ing should be razed to make way for the new Clark County Public Library.