Monroe County High School is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

in Monroeville, Monroe County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

. It is part of the Monroe County School District.

History

Monroe County High School is the successor to a short-lived public school open to both blacks and whites built by the

Freedmen's Bureau The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen (i.e., former enslaved people) in the ...

shortly after the U.S. Civil War, and the Monroeville High School, housed in a small frame building erected by local citizens (on the site of the present day Monroeville Elementary School) in 1895. This building burned in 1903 and was not rebuilt. In 1907, the

State Legislature A state legislature is a Legislature, legislative branch or body of a State (country subdivision), political subdivision in a Federalism, federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of ...

mandated a public high school in every

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

, stipulating that the value of the building must exceed $5,000, (~$ in ) be placed on a lot with a minimum of five acres, and all school properties be deeded to the state. There were no provisions in this bill for the state to furnish any funds, and it was the responsibility of the local citizenry to raise the necessary capital. Erected on the former site of the defunct Monroeville High School, the original two-story brick building housed grades 7–12. The first Monroe County High School classes were begun in the fall of , and in that first year there was one graduate, Maybelle Broughton. Congressman

John McDuffie John McDuffie (September 25, 1883 – November 1, 1950) was a United States representative from Alabama and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Education and career Born on ...

delivered the commencement address This building was used as the high school until a new one was erected on York Street in 1936. At this time, some classes in the elementary school moved into the old facility and occupied the old building until it burned just prior to the opening bell on the morning of November 11, 1946. No students or staff were injured in the blaze. The second location of Monroe County High School was on York Street until 1978. The school was expanded multiple times to add more instructional space and facilities to the original two story building and gymnasium. After a new high school was built on Tiger Drive, the old high school was converted to Monroeville Junior High School. It is still in use as a junior high school for 6th through 8th grades.

Notable alumni

* Chris Booker, former

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

player * Tytus Howard, NFL offensive tackle *

Harper Lee Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American novelist whose 1960 novel ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman ...

, author of ''

To Kill a Mockingbird ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' is a 1960 Southern Gothic novel by American author Harper Lee. It became instantly successful after its release; in the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' ...

References

External links

MCHS website
Public high schools in Alabama Schools in Monroe County, Alabama Educational institutions established in 1912 1912 establishments in Alabama Schools supported by the Freedmen's Bureau {{Alabama-school-stub