K-9s, Classrooms, and Cactus Gardens: Walking on Wednesdays Goes to School

School was out and students were on summer vacation, so last Wednesday our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesday group could walk through the Piedmont High campus, see some of its notable features, and talk about its history. There was good turnout of 41 walkers and two K-9 best friends at the Exedra for the tour.

Before we started walking, some Piedmont High history was shared. In 1916 Piedmont land developer Frank C. Havens was in financial trouble. He had become a speculator on a large scale and took is California fortune to New York where the Wall Street people stripped him down to almost his last dollar. He had only a little land in his wife's name and returned to California to try to make another fortune, but the confidence in him had been lost and he could find no one to back his schemes.

The Oakland Tribune reported lawsuits totaling $90,000 were filed against Havens. The Anglo-California Trust Company held the mortgage on the Piedmont Park for $172,000, and neither the interest nor the principal had been paid. Havens had auctioned off his art collection and wanted to sell the park to raise funds.

The Piedmont School Board voted to purchase some of the park for a new high school and athletic field. They wanted 13 acres, but Havens wouldn’t sell less than the park’s entire 27 acres. The City of Piedmont wanted to save the park from residential development, but did not have money to purchase the remaining parkland, and in November 1916 Piedmont voters defeated a measure to raise funds to buy the land.

Havens died suddenly in 1918 from food poisoning. The parkland was still available in 1921 when Piedmont philanthropist Wallace Alexander and others offered to purchase 14 acres of the park if the City would reimburse them. This plan allowed the entire 27-acre parcel to be sold. The School District could buy the 13 acres it wanted, and the City could have its park. Alexander purchased the land in 1921 for the city and one year later voters passed a bond issue to reimburse him and his partners.

We took a path behind the Exedra along the top of the park to a backside entrance to the high school. We walked down a breezeway to an open area near the student center and the library, and more PHS history was shared. 

Construction began immediately on the high school in 1921. Architect William Weeks designed a reinforced concrete school with terra cotta trim for 500 students. The auditorium spanned the front of the school with two stories of classrooms behind. Two wings held more classrooms. The cooking and science labs were to be set away from the main building in these wings, removing any odors and fire risk. Piedmont Junior High School and the athletic field were added in 1924, and additions to the high school were built in 1937 and 1939.

In 1974, the original school building was declared unsafe under state earthquake laws and was demolished. However, the demolition took longer than anticipated because the buildings were so well built that it was difficult to tear them down. Three new classroom buildings and a gymnasium were built, but the original library, quad, and administration buildings were rehabilitated.

The 1974 construction was done in the "back-to-nature" style that was then popular with a wood exterior. However, by the mid-2010s this construction was also deemed earthquake unsafe and these buildings had to be demolished too. The school was reconstructed following voters’ passage of the H1 Measure, which issued $56 million in bonds for new facilities to meet earthquake safety guidelines. A new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) building was built on the site along with a new theater. They opened in the fall of 2021.

Some more interesting facts about PHS were also shared. It was the last school in California to resist pressure from the State to stop enforcing a dress code which required students, and specifically girls, to wear a uniform. PHS girls were required to wear middy blouses and pleated skirts until the early 1960s. Girls having to wear uniforms eliminated wardrobe competition and PHS alumna Sherry Jacobs said it made getting dressed for school easy. She only had to choose between black or white skirts.

We took a side trip to the front of the school and checked out the progress on the under-construction aquatics center. A lot of concrete was recently poured, but there is still work to be done. It doesn’t seem there will be swimming this summer. We went back into the school campus and walked past Millenium High, Piedmont’s other high school, and the Binks Rawlings gymnasium and the Middle School. We walked down PHS’s steep "PE Hill” to the locker rooms and coaches’ offices above the Witter football, track, and softball fields.

We descended the stadium stairs to the football field and crossed the track to a monument dedicated in March 2024 in memory of the man for whom the field is named, Jean C. Witter, Jr. He was a former captain of PHS’s football team and played for Cal before joining the US Navy as an ensign in World War II. At the age of 20, he was killed aboard the USS San Francisco in 1942 during the Battle of Guadalcanal. The field was dedicated to him in 1948. The new scoreboard at Witter Field honors the memory of 1948 PHS football player Charles Williams.

We walked past the baseball field and noted that Humphries Diamond is named for Mike Humphries. Mike is a retired Piedmont High teacher who coached the PHS baseball team for 33 years and the freshman football team for 43 years.

We emerged from Witter on the lower part of El Cerrito Avenue, took a quick turn, and went up the lower portion of Jerome Avenue. We crossed Magnolia Avenue and continued on Jerome but couldn’t resist walking the charming Keefer Court cul-de-sac. At the end of this street is a marvelous, cactus garden front yard. It contains a unique collection of cacti, succulents, and drought-tolerant plants from around the world. The nearby houses have taken on a similar look to give the street a Santa Fe Southwest feel. We liked it so much we took a group photo there.

We crossed Oakland Avenue and went up to and down Latham Street, which all the walkers knew is the “only street in Piedmont.” (It’s the only Piedmont roadway called a “street.”) We went up Cambridge Way to Ricardo Avenue and up Blair Avenue. The climb up Blair got us to the one-block Carmel Avenue and Oakland Avenue for a return to the Exedra via Bonita Vista and Highland Avenues.