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Categories: RenderingsWindsor

Walkerville High School

From the Border Cites Star, June 23, 1921:

    Sketch of the design accepted by the Walkerville School Board for the new high school to be erected at a cost of $450,000. It was prepared by Boyd (sic) and Thomson of Windsor. The new building will be located on Huron street, between Devonshire and Monmouth roads. It will be of a gray-buff color (sic) and will contain 24 class-rooms in addition to physics and chemistry laboratories, and auditorium to seat 8000 people, a gymnasium and a swimming pool. All the class-rooms will be above grade level, only the swimming pool being below ground. The boiler room and power house will be located in a separate building.

Designed by John Boyde and J.P. Thomson, the construction was supervised by Pennington and Boyde.

According to the newspaper reports at the time, this design was the winning one in a competition held to design the new building. Local architects who made it to the final round were I.S.F. Walker (who designed the Lincoln Road United Church), David Cameron and Albert McPhail. I would love to see some of the designs that were submitted but never chosen.

Throughout the 1920’s some of Windsor’s grandest buildings were schools. Along with John Campbell, Kennedy and others, it was truly a boom time in the Border Cities, luckily many of these fine buildings still stand today.

Andrew

View Comments

  • The rumour about William "Uncle Wille" Young was still talked about when I graduated in 1974, 2 years after he retired. Soon after his longtime friend Ian Allison would also retire.

    If you look at the rendering you will notice that it is much larger than the finished building is. Originally there was a a center courtyard. It would later be turned into the theatre. As for the pool, lovingly known as: "The Bathtub" well... it was very small. It's size may have been a result of budgeting constraints. Dreamers are often reeled in by accountants and politicians.

  • I graduated in 1955 and was never so happy to finish school. Started working at Chrysler Canada and when I left was an executive secretary to two directors, the Director of Marketing and the Director of Customer and Dealer Relations.

    I liked all my teachers except Mr. Ball who was my guidance teacher. He asked me a question and I was unable to answer it. He said I didn't know my work and I don't know where I got the courage but I told him that he scared me. He let me sit back down without any further comment.

    Read a comment from Gayle Gray. She was my friend in grade 12. I remember she used to teach new Italian immigrates English. My first piece of pizza was given to me by Gayle which the mother of one of her students had made. Boy was that good.

    Little Mr. O'Brien used to sit along side of me in Geometry and helped me draw angles. I think he liked me because I had red hair. (I never did like my red hair)

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Andrew

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