1900s
School resumed on March 12 with 75 students in attendance. 25 of them went home every evening while the remainder stayed in the Girls’ and Boys’ Industrial Buildings.
The Primary Building was built to accommodate 60 kindergarten pupils. Bedrooms, bathrooms, and two rooms for two supervisors were on the second floor, four classrooms and two large sitting rooms on the first floor, and two playrooms for the boys and girls in the basement. The building had two chimneys, a slate roof, and a ramp from the front door to the road.
Boys taking carpenter classes built new porches at the north and south ends of the Primary Building.
On May 16, 1901, a copper time capsule was sealed in the cornerstone of the Main Building after each class paraded with a banner with their year painted in bright colors. Letters written by students, information about the big fire of 1899, past WPSD and national publications, and photographs of buildings and students were put in the copper box. It began to erect the new Main Building on August 7th.
Sewing was added to the vocational program. The girls learned to make clothing, sheets, pillowcases, and other necessities. The beginners learned how to sew darn socks and repair torn clothes.
In 1902 the “Amusement Club” was organized. The contestants were charged an entry fee of five cents. The game included crokinole, parcheesi, twiddled winks, checkers, baseball dominoes, halma, old maid, and chess. Crokinole, checkers, and chess were the most popular.
The new Main Building was opened on September 29, 1902. The Grecian Ionic architecture was comprised of three buildings connected by hallways on each level; the center building has eight white columns at its entrance and was mirrored by the Boy’s Side on the right and Girl’s Side on the left. Also, a roller-skating rink was added to the basement of the Boys’ Side. The chapel had 282 opera chairs.
A solarium or glass-enclosed porch was added to the Infirmary by the boys in carpentry classes in 1903.
Every year the boys pulled sassafras roots, put them in bags, and carried them to the kitchen to brew good tea.
With O.J. Stabler as the teacher, the boys worked on painting, enameling, shellacking, vanishing, and lacquering to keep up with the appearance of our school in 1903. Also, they learned how to remove old paint on old steel fences with a wire brush.
The Boys’ Vocational Building was built in 1904. The woodworking shop was moved from the Boys’ Industrial Building to the first floor while the printing shop was relocated to the second floor. The old industrial building was converted into the Laundry Building, and other vocational classes were housed on the top floor.
The old woodshop building (pictured in 1897) was standing beside the Boy’s Industrial Building. In 1915 the Edgewood Troop 2 built several log cabins on the school campus out of discarded lumber in the back of the old woodshop building. It was torn down in 1905.
A small new building at the front of the primary building was called a garden tool shed in 1905. WPID planted potatoes, corn, green beans, peas and more vegetables to feed faculties and students.
In March 1906 the roadway from the kitchen to the boiler house was paved with bricks so the horses could pull heavy loads up the grade more easily. The roadway was paved, and two rows of trees from the boiler house to Swissvale Avenue were added.
Boys from the carpentry classes built the pavilion behind the Primary Building, and it was affectionately called the “Summer House” in 1907.
An English Language Club was organized under Mr. George Teegarden, a famous deaf poet. The pupils were not permitted to use signs, just fingerspelling, writing and speech.
The Primary Building was enlarged to include more classrooms, dormitories, and bathrooms. The porches were removed to give more room to build concrete stairs on both ends in 1907.
A brick stable was built to keep Old Bill, an industrial horse, warm. Then the building was used for classes in painting in 1908.
In 1909 funds from the estate of John Porterfield were used to build a new gymnasium in 1910. The shoemaking classes made gym slippers for the boys and girls, and the sewing classes made gym suits for the girls.