Edgewood Freshman High School

Most locals rightly associate Edgewood High School with West Covina, but few today remember that its original home was actually in Covina.

Edgewood High School was established in 1958 at old Covina High.

By 1957, the Covina Union High School District was bursting at the seams. Not one, not two, but three new high schools were needed to keep up with surging enrollments.¹ Covina High had moved to its new home on Hollenbeck Avenue in 1956,² but the district already needed two more secondary schools to serve Covina: one for Charter Oak, and another in the northern and western portions of the growing community.¹ Likewise, West Covina got its first high school campus in 1957,³ but it too opened at capacity, and a second one was needed ASAP.¹

While those new facilities were being built, some shuffling was required to avoid overcrowding at existing schools. So, for academic year 1958-1959 only, all incoming freshmen who normally would have gone to Covina High or West Covina High were instead assigned to attend classes at the former Covina High School campus⁴ on Citrus Avenue south of downtown. There, Edgewood Freshman High School opened for instruction on September 15, 1958, with an initial enrollment of 1,142 students.⁴ (Brand new Charter Oak High School also opened for the first time the same day, with 626 freshmen and sophomores.)⁵

Edgewood's mascot for that single academic year was the "Matadors," and the yearbook name was "La Corrida" ("The Bullfight").⁶ I'm not certain about the school colors, but the yearbook cover was Olive, Black and White, so I'm guessing they were some combination (or maybe all?) of those.

"La Corrida" was Edgewood Freshman High's first and only yearbook.

Because Edgewood's oldest students were only 14, interscholastic athletics were limited to the Junior Varsity level. Still, the young Matadors did well! The JV Football squad finished their '58 season 5-3-1, and JV Baseball excelled with a league-topping record of 11-3, winning their last 7 games in a row.⁶ Edgewood's strong showing in baseball was not too surprising, though, since four of its ballplayers had been members of the West Covina American All-Star team that placed third in the California State Little League Tournament in 1957.⁷

The mighty Matadors of '59 outscored their opponents 112-37!⁶ Position players Fred Allen, Tom Dolan, and pitchers Jim Kendall and Bruce Young were already seasoned competitors in local youth baseball by the time they attended Edgewood.

In academic year 1959-1960, the now second-year students who lived in the southwest portions of the district transferred to their brand new campus at Orange and Merced Avenues in West Covina and took the name "Edgewood"—and first principal Roscoe Vanimen⁸—with them. Construction was still incomplete, though, so West Covina's Edgewood only housed freshmen, sophomores and juniors in its maiden year.⁸

After the successful completion of its multi-campus expansion, the Covina Union High School District dissolved with the formation of the Covina-Valley Unified School District on July 1, 1960,⁹ and its respective high schools in West Covina, Charter Oak and Baldwin Park were absorbed by adjoining unified school districts under whose administration they remain today.

And what of the old CUHS campus? After Edgewood Freshman, new Northview High used classrooms there from September 14-November 15, 1959,¹⁰ but that would be the last time the aging civic landmark was ever used for secondary-level education. The old veteran hobbled along for a few more years pulling duty for elementary school overflow and adult night classes, but its generally dilapidated condition plus the coup de grâce of an arson fire in 1962 left the school district no choice, and the entire city-block-sized complex was razed for redevelopment in Summer, 1963.⁹

References:

¹ Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1957, p.117.
² Covina Argus-Citizen, September 13, 1956, p.1.
³ Pasadena Independent Star-News, September 3, 1957, p.A-11.
⁴ Pomona Progress-Bulletin, September 11, 1958, p.26.
⁵ Pomona Progress-Bulletin, August 8, 1958, p.14.
⁶ "La Corrida," Yearbook of Edgewood High School, Covina, California, 1959, 81pp.
⁷ San Gabriel Valley Tribune, August 12, 1957.
⁸ Pasadena Independent Star-News, February 10, 1959, p.15.
⁹ "Covina-Valley Unified School District Centennial, 1896-1996," published by Covina-Valley Unified School District, 1996, 114pp.
¹⁰ Pasadena Independent, September 3, 1959, p.31.