Irondequoit Historical Society Post March, 2022

Thanks to Patricia Wayne, former Town Historian, for this synopsis.

The first Irondequoit high school. In 1895 a "modern" four-room building replaced a two room brick building at the corner of Titus and what was then called Lower Hudson Avenue, now Cooper Road. District #3 as it was then known was the only district to develop such a building. At first the building housed only elementary classes but in 1924 the first students had made it to graduation and Irondequoit Union Free district No. 3 had become Irondequoit High. The first graduation class numbered just four girls. But the building was now officially a high school so the lower classes were gradually moved out to other schools. Through the years as the town grew, so had its only high school In 1917, the Grange Hall, now the House of Guitars, was rented for physical education classes. By 1922 four classrooms, an assembly hall, gym, lavatories, a teachers' room and a library were all added. In 1927 two portables of two rooms each were added to increase classroom space. Two more classrooms were formed out of the basement and the teachers' lounge was sacrificed for another classroom. With the housing boom after World War II it was quite clear that the old building could no longer accommodate the burgeoning population of young families. The State of New York warned the school district several times that the high school was a fire hazard. Despite the warnings the voters were reluctant to take on the debt necessary to replace the old building. However eventually, the district heeding the persistent warning, approved plans for a new high school at a cost of one million dollars to be built next to Rueben Dake School on Cooper Road. The new high school cost half of what the original plans called for. Earl Helmer, the new principal, commented that the new building was already too small when it opened and history proved him to be right. The old high school stood abandoned waiting for a buyer who never materialized On March 27, 1951 during the night, fire broke out damaging the building so badly that it was condemned, then razed.