Central High School is a historic former school building in downtown

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

, designed by

Solomon Andrew Layton Solomon Andrew Layton (July 22, 1864 – February 6, 1943) was an American architect who designed over 100 public buildings in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma area and was part of the Layton & Forsyth firm. Layton headed partnerships in Oklahoma f ...

. The school opened in 1910, and operated as a high school until 1968. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1976. It was converted to offices in the 1980s by

Southwestern Bell Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. It does business as other d.b.a. names in its operating region, which includes Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and portions of Illinois. The company is ...

, who renamed it One Bell Central. One Bell Central was damaged in the

Oklahoma City bombing The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, United States, on April 19, 1995. The bombing remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. Perpetr ...

of 1995, which destroyed the

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a United States federal government complex located at 200 N.W. 5th Street in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On April 19, 1995, the building was the target of the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McV ...

two blocks west. Following the bombing, the president of Southwestern Bell offered the building as an incident command headquarters, a role which it served in for multiple weeks during the rescue operations. Southwestern Bell vacated the building in 2005, and it was briefly owned by an insurance company before being sold to

Oklahoma City University Oklahoma City University (OCU) is a private university historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The university offers undergraduate bachelor's degrees, graduate master's degrees and docto ...

in 2012. Since 2015, the Central High School building has housed the

Oklahoma City University School of Law Oklahoma City University School of Law, also known as OCU Law, is the law school of Oklahoma City University. OCU Law is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was founded in 1907. OCU Law was located in the Sarkeys Law Center on t ...

History

Construction

Secondary education in Oklahoma City began in the early 1890s, with the establishment of a high school in a one-room structure at 313 West California Avenue in 1892. Oklahoma High School grew rapidly, and moved out of its original building the next year. The first graduating class of six students graduated in the spring of 1895. By the turn of the 20th century, the need for a new high school building for Oklahoma City was clear. The construction of the new high school was to be financed by a $300,000 ($ million in )

bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Fidelity bond, a type of insurance policy for employers * Chemical bond, t ...

issue, which was promoted by Oklahoma High School students, especially the class of 1910. Solomon Andrew Layton, a prolific architect who also designed the

Oklahoma State Capitol The Oklahoma State Capitol is the house of government of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the building that houses the Oklahoma Legislature and executive branch offices. It is located along Lincoln Boulevard in Oklahoma City and contains 452,50 ...

, designed the building. The new school was built on Robinson Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets, on a site occupying half a city block. Cost overruns raised the expenditure for the building to over $500,000, and delays in construction meant that the building was not fully complete in time for the graduation of the class of 1910. The school board insisted that the construction contractor complete the auditorium by May 1910, and the first graduation ceremony in the new building was held on May 26, 1910, for a graduating class of 72 students.

Operation as Central High School

The first classes in the new Oklahoma High School building began in the fall of 1910, and the building was completed after classes began. In 1911, 1500 students were enrolled, with a faculty of 50. Originally known as Oklahoma High School, the school was renamed Central High School in 1919. The name change reflected the growth of the school district, which by 1920 had three high schools. The school went through a number of iterations throughout its over seven decades of existence, serving as a high school, a junior high school, a middle school, and finally as the alternative school Central Innovative High School. 1981 was the final school year for Central Innovative High School, and

Oklahoma City Public Schools The Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS) is a multicultural public school district serving most of the urban area of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is the second largest primary and secondary education district in the state of Oklahoma, after Tul ...

sought buyers for the building.

Conversion to offices

bought the school building in 1981, and purchased two adjacent parcels of land on the same block in 1982. The school district sold the property to Southwestern Bell for $2.7 million ($ million in ), over the objections of the Oklahoma Museum of Art, which was attempting to raise the necessary funds to purchase the building for itself. Southwestern Bell renovated the building and renamed it One Bell Central, and included a museum to Central High School in the building's lobby. The renovations included the conversion of the school's auditorium into a courtyard, retaining the

proscenium arch A proscenium (, ) is the virtual vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor itself, which serves as the frame ...

as an architectural feature.

1995 Oklahoma City bombing

On April 19, 1995, the

destroyed the

, located two blocks west of the former school. One Bell Central was damaged in the bombing, but remained structurally sound. The day of the bombing, Southwestern Bell president David Lopez offered the Oklahoma City fire chief the use of the building as an

incident command post According to the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and the Incident Command System (ICS), the incident command post (ICP) is one of five predesignated temporary facilities and signifies the physical location of the tactical-level, on-scen ...

, and it served in that capacity for weeks. Southwestern Bell was able to support the communications needs of the hundreds of first responders. Some functions at One Bell Central were moved to the

Myriad Convention Center Prairie Surf Studios (originally Myriad Convention Center and later Cox Convention Center) is a Filmmaking, film production complex located in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was formerly a convention center and the home of several minor lea ...

in the days following the bombing, as the recovery effort continued. As part of the incident response, a group of

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

s established themselves in the building's parking garage, using organizational strategies developed from a "Chaplain's Corner" program at the

Oklahoma State Fair The Oklahoma State Fair is a fair and exposition in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It takes place in mid-September each year, and along with the Tulsa State Fair The Tulsa State Fair is an annual event held at Expo Square in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The stat ...

. A total of 255 chaplains participated in the response, caring for rescue workers, survivors, and families of the victims.

Oklahoma City University School of Law

One Bell Central served as Southwestern Bell and later

SBC Communications AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the ...

' Oklahoma headquarters until 2005, when SBC Communications consolidated its Oklahoma City offices and vacated the building. SBC sold the building to the Oklahoma Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Company in 2005. The insurance company never fully occupied the space, and announced that it would sell the building in 2010. Oklahoma City University expressed interest in the building for an expansion of its campus, and Oklahoma City Public Schools sought to repurchase the building for use as administrative offices. Oklahoma City University outbid the school district, and purchased the building in 2012. Oklahoma City University renovated the building after purchasing it, and moved its law school to the building beginning in 2015. OCU Law established a museum on the third floor of the building, documenting the buildling's history. The Law School stop of the

Oklahoma City Streetcar The Oklahoma City Streetcar (OKC Streetcar), also known as the MAPS 3 streetcar, is a streetcar system in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, that opened in 2018 and is operated by Embark_(transit_authority), Embark. The system serves the ...

is located in front of the building. Streetcar service began in 2018, and operates daily. The Law School stop serves southbound streetcars towards Bricktown; northbound streetcars operate on Broadway Avenue, one block east.

References

External links

*
Historic photographs of Central High School
from the Oklahoma Historical Society {{NRHP in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, collapse_state=collapsed National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma City Oklahoma City Public Schools Gothic Revival architecture in Oklahoma School buildings completed in 1910 1910 establishments in Oklahoma