Last week’s article showed documentation of a land purchase with the preparations for the building of the new school on Forest Street. Next, construction of a three-story building began in 1909. Pictures of classes in front of the building show that it was completed in 1910, but the first documentation of a class graduating from Union High School on Forest Street is in 1912. The May 2, 1912, Union Appeal states that the building cost $12,000.
Then on February 25, 1924, this school building burned. As a result, students went to school in the churches while a new two-story brick school was immediately being erected. In the following years, as the school continued to grow, J.T. Service was hired to build a one-story annex to the north end of the two-story building. The annex was completed November 1, 1928, and then used for the elementary school.
The people of Union supported the school in its growth, providing for its needs whenever they could. For example, in September 1935, the newly-organized Union Lions Club raised $1500 to light the football field, making it one of the few lighted fields in the area. Then in January 1938, the Lions Club, with funds from the WPA, sponsored the construction of a vocational and science building at Union High School for $5500.
In 1940, a hard-surfaced road was laid in front of the school. Then in 1947, Union citizens acknowledged that Union was the only school in the county without a gymnasium. The basketball team had been playing on a dirt court behind the school’s auditorium at the back of the building near King Street. Therefore, in November 1947, they began construction of a new gymnasium, which today is referred to as the “old gym,” and ten classrooms that attached to it. The buildings were completed in 1948. Those ten rooms house the upper elementary grades today, and these remain the two oldest buildings on campus.
Also, in those years, the school also had no lunchroom. Therefore, in 1948, the PTA met that need. Alton Staton, contractor, poured a concrete slab in the area adjoining the back of the lot of Leo Wolf on 212 Peachtree Street. At the same time, barracks were being torn down at Key Field in Meridian. The PTA bought some of those barracks for $72.00 and moved them to UHS, where they were set up on the slab and used as a lunchroom until the new cafetorium was built in 1961.
In addition, the school needed a band hall. Hence, in 1950 the Union Lions Club moved a white, wood-framed building from Jackson Air Base to UHS to fill that need. At that time, the superintendent’s home was located south of the gym where they wanted the band hall placed. Therefore, the house was moved to King Street where the new gym was later built. The wooden band hall was placed in the house’s former location south of the gym and used until 1966 when it was replaced with a new one.
Union school continued to grow. For instance, in the 1950s, county schools such as County Line School and Stratton School closed, and some of their students then attended Union High.
In December 1953, Carver Public School for Black children grades 1-6 was built on James Street. They moved from their previous school located around 106 Bolden Street. Next, four classrooms, two offices, two restrooms, a cafeteria, and an auditorium were added to Carver in 1960. Grades 7-12 went to C.H. Boler High School in Decatur.
In 1954, Union’s school was changed from Union Public School to Union Municipal School.
More changes began to occur in the summer of 1960 with a new building program. The old school built in 1924 was razed in preparation for the building of a new high school building, a cafetorium, and an elementary wing behind it. The junior high students would then occupy the 10 classrooms in the building erected in 1948.
During that year of construction in 1960-1961, the high school students’ classes were held in the 10 classrooms attached to the gym and in various old houses surrounding the school, while the elementary students primarily had classes in the First Baptist Church. The fifth-grade classes met in a house where the field house is located today, and part of the sixth grade had classes in a house next to it.
The new building was open for classes the following year with the Class of 1962 being the first to graduate in it.
Continued growth to the school will be discussed in next week’s article.
If you have additional memories of the school, contact me at teresablount26@yahoo.com or 601-774-5564.
