Whittier School History 

Beginnings:

In 1855 John Blaisdell built a log cabin on the hill near 24th St, between Pleasant and Lyndale, and Blaisdell School was run out of the parlor. The house overlooked a little lake at what is now 22nd & Lyndale. The lake has since been filled in but the intersection still floods during heavy rainfall!

In 1883 Blaisdell School was renamed Whittier, after the 19th century poet and abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier. Like other areas of the city, families would soon call their neighborhood after the elementary school.

In 1903 a new Whittier school (pictured below) was constructed, a Romanesque Revival brick building on the corner of 26th & Blaisdell.  The school was closed in 1975 and is now Common Bond community housing. 

In September of 1997 our current Whittier School building was constructed, and for the first few years was called Whittier Community School for the Arts.  In 2005, Whittier embarked on a journey to become an International Baccalaureate School.  Read more about Whittier's IB journey here.

Click on this link for information about Whittier Principals Past & Present.