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The Seneca Public High School building opened it doors to pupils April 28, 1890. Bonds for the $35,000 building were voted February 4, 1889, carried by a majority of 198.  Louis  Wetmore was the contractor.  He had difficulty in financing this construction of the school and lost considerable money on the Job. This school was  located in the block east of the the present  Court House.

The Gilford hotel, The First National Bank building and the Schmitz block  were all begun in 1890. This was a boom time for Seneca as there were many building built in Seneca from the 1880s to 1910.  

The tornado of 1889  damaged this building somewhat, however did more damage to the  Court House which was on the block to the west  and also damaged  Catholic Church to the northeast.   The picture behind is from southeast  with the rail post fence replaced with a rail fence.   Would estimate the first picture about  1910   and second picture after 1915 reason for these dates is  from size of the trees.  There is a fence here to keep animals off the school yard and prevent runaway teams  and cattle from running  down children.

This School was condemned in 1968  some of the walls were showing cracks  and was believed to be  unsafe. The Fire Marshal ordered the building vacated immediately.  There was a lot of contrivers as to this being necessary however if this building  had collapsed and injured or killed some children it would have been too late. 

The building  was taken down and the lumber sold by the contractor who dismantled this building. The block was sold and remained vacant until the  Family Medical Center was built on the south west corner of the block. I bought some of the lumber to use in constriction building on my farm and spent some time on the site. People would come by and express their concerns  about the building  how they felt about it being destroyed, and it was quite difficult for some. Some would come by and seem to think because I was buying the lumber I could have prevented this from happening.

 From time to time I must go back and make additions or correction when I find what seem to be different facts.   Some of these facts may be  opinion of people in the past. 

Some of the information above is from the 1938 Anniversary of the Courier Tribune.

Class of 1912 in front of the school  Click here to see.