Existing Facility History

East Anchorage High School facility has one of the unique histories of high schools in the Anchorage School District.  A plan of the facility with the dates of construction was prepared to understand how the facility evolved.  This plan was presented to the Design Committee at the second meeting on July 8, 1999.  Please see Drawing A-2 in Section H.3 Supplemental Information for the July 8, 1999 meeting to clarify the various construction projects. 

The original school was built in 1960, long before Northern Lights Blvd. existed.  The access was from the north, Bragaw Street.  There was ample parking and the front entrance was on the west to the main gym and from the south to the office area.  The school was probably built for 800-1000 students and had several courtyards.  Virtually ever classroom had exterior windows with daylight and spaces were proportioned for their specific need and use for that time. 

In October of 1971 the Benson building was added to the school and some additional space was added to the old cafeteria area.  The purpose of this Addition was to bring a Junior High School for 600-800 students adjacent to the High School.  The spaces were designed for Junior High School programs and student needs.

In November of 1972 the cafeteria was built to accommodate the Junior High School and High School needs along with the New Gym and Pool complex.  The old gym was converted to a Library.  Again portions of this were built to Junior High School standards.

In December of 1973, two of the three courtyards were roofed over for student center and some classroom space.  This addition created almost 50% of the classrooms as interior, windowless spaces.  Additionally, lack of exits and other major fire code issues were created with these infill areas.

It should be noted that all of the above construction was completed prior to the Municipality of Anchorage existence and without the complete review by all code officials that we now have.  The school was outside the City of Anchorage and within the Borough, which had limited code enforcement at that time.

At some time after 1973 as new Junior High Schools and Middle Schools were built, the facility was amalgamated together into a single High School for nearly 2000 High School Students.