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Overview

School administrators laid out Lincoln High School on a 3.51-acre plot, erecting a 30-room building designed by the system's architect, James Stephen. Between 1907 and 1959, the school received three additions and the inclusion of wooden annex building. The Seattle Public School System closed the facility in 1981.

Building History

Lincoln High School opened 09/1907, with 900 students. The Jacobean Styled school had four floors accommodating a total of 30 rooms. In 1957, the Seattle Public Schools nearly doubled Lincoln High School's property from 3.51 acres to 6.72 acres. According to the authoritative school history prepared by Carolyn Marr and Nile J. Thompson, Seattle erected a large new high school in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, but, due to rapid growth in the city between 1900 and 1906, enrollment at this new school became overcrowded in four years. The school board determined to have another high school built, but locating it would be competitive. Marr and Thompson wrote: "Residents of both Fremont and Green Lake wanted the school in their neighborhoods, but a site on Interlake Avenue was chosen because of its central location and proximity to streetcar lines. At the time of its selection, the site was covered with brush and stumps left by logging operations and sawmills still operating nearby. Some citizens requested the school be named Interlake High School to conform with the new grade school, but the board agreed wholeheartedly on the name, which honors Abraham Lincoln, the nation's sixteenth president." (See Carolyn Marr and Nile J. Thompson, HistoryLink.org, "Seattle Public Schools, 1862-2000: Lincoln High School," republished 09/08/2013, accessed 05/03/2018.)

In 06/1906, the Seattle Sunday Times described Lincoln High School as it was being built near Green Lake: "The Lincoln High School is being erected at the corner of Interlake Avenue and Allen Place. This building is planned to accommodate 1,000 pupils, is three-story and basement in height, and contains fifty rooms. The basement story contains space for heating and ventilating apparatus, manual training rooms, including wood-working shop, wood-turning and pattern shop, stock room, domestic science and sewing rooms, dining room, store rooms and toilets. In the first story are located the main office, private office, teachers' room, mechanical drawing and commercial department, four recitation rooms, type-writing room, locker room, toilte room and a large assembly room with a seating capacity of 700 pupils. This room will be used as a library room, book cases being arranged in alcoves at one side of the room. The second floor contains the physiographical laboratory, biological laboratory, two working laboratories, free-hand drawing rooms, five recitation rooms, locker and toilet rooms. The third floor contains the physical laboratory, chemical laboratory, zoological laboratory, four recitation rooms, two lecture rooms, two private laboratories, toilet rooms and large gymnasium with shower rooms for boys and girls. The halls and corridors will be built in fireproof construction. These corridors will have terrazzo floors, as will also the domestic science room. The stairways, of which there are two, will be constructed entirely of iron, with slate treads. The style of architecture is collegiate gothic. The material used will be a dark mottled red paving brick, laid in black mortar with a granite gray terra-cotta trimming. The dimensions of the building are 180 feet by 200 feet. This building will care for a portion fo the graded school pupils in this district." (See "School Buildings Under Way," Seattle Sunday Times, 06/24/1906, p. 53.)

In 2007, The Seattle Public School System designated the Lincoln High School along with three others, to be kept as properties for emergency or short term use.

Alterations

Lincoln High School received additions in 1914 (Edgar Blair, Architect), 1920, 1930 (Floyd A. Naramore, Architect) and 1959 (Naramore, Bain, Brady, and Johanson [NBBJ]). The 1920 addition consisted of the inclusion of a wood-frame annex building.

NBBJ's contribution in 1959 consisted of the design for a new gymnasium and auditorium.

PCAD id: 8004