Covina's First High Schools

On July 14, 1891, the citizens of Azusa, Glendora and Covina voted to establish Citrus Union High School. This first institution of secondary education in what was then called the Azusa Valley opened for instruction on September 28, 1891, and produced its first graduates in 1894.

Citrus High's initial home was the abandoned Barnes Hotel in the land-boom town of Gladstone, two miles north of Covina, and was located on the southwest corner of Citrus Avenue and Broadway (today's Gladstone Street). On December 11, 1891, a storm destroyed that building, and the school moved across the intersection into this former general store on the northeast corner where it remained until December, 1903.

Citrus Union High School in 1901. Image courtesy Calisphere, University of California.

Students from Covina, however, stopped attending Citrus in 1899, when the rapidly growing town created its own high school district. Classes were held on the upper floor of the Grammar School until a separate dedicated high school building was opened nearby on San Bernardino Road opposite Park Avenue in 1903.

The first Covina High School, 1903-1909. In 1919, the building was moved to Second and School Street and became a Masonic Temple. It still stands today as a museum.

According to Pflueger's history of Covina, the curriculum of the first high school consisted of:

English, Algebra, Latin, Ancient History, French, German, Free Hand Drawing, Writing, Spelling, Commercial Arithmetic, Stenography, Typewriting, Plane Geometry, Medieval and Modern History, Botany, Bookkeeping, Spanish, English History, Solid Geometry, Chemistry, Geometrical Drawing, Greek, Commercial Law, Physics, American History, Government, Trigonometry, and Higher Algebra.

The third and most recognized historical campus was Covina Union High School, located on the west side of Citrus Avenue between Puente and Dexter Streets. Built in 1908-1909, it graduated 47 classes of seniors until Covina High moved for the last time in 1956. From 1956-1959, the newly established West Covina and Edgewood High Schools also used the old campus.

Covina Union High School opened September 20, 1909. It would serve the local community for the next 50 years.

"Science Hall" (left) was added to the CUHS campus in 1925.

The venerable civic edifice was demolished after the gymnasium was destroyed by arson in June, 1962.