Ottumwa High School

Ottumwa High School
Ottumwa High School - 2015
Address
501 E 2nd St, Ottumwa, Iowa 52501 United States
Coordinates	41°00′54″N 92°24′22″W / 41.015°N 92.406°W / 41.015; -92.406Coordinates: 41°00′54″N 92°24′22″W / 41.015°N 92.406°W / 41.015; -92.406
Information
School type	Public
Established	1923
School district	Ottumwa Community School District
Superintendent	Davis Eidahl
Principal	Mark S. Hanson
Enrollment	approx 1330
Mascot	Bulldog
Website	www.ottumwaschools.com/highschool/

Ottumwa High School is a public high school located in Ottumwa, Iowa. It is part of the Ottumwa Community School District, and it is the district's only high school. It was established in 1923. The school sports mascot is a Bulldog.

For several years, students in Ottumwa attended private classes inside area homes. Later, some students studied inside a local Methodist Episcopal church. In 1865, the first public school in Ottumwa—Adams School—was completed at "College Square", an area bounded by College, Fourth, Second, and Union Streets. The school, which utilized four classrooms on its top floor for the high school, cost $28,818.57 to build, and it sat on the same site as the present-day high school. It was declared unsafe in 1883. The school board voted to tear down the condemned building and build a new one at the same site. With more citizens coming to Ottumwa, an additional high school was constructed about a mile west of the Adams School site in 1899. This building later served as a junior high school until it was closed in 1982.

The Ottumwa High School football/track stadium, known as Schafer Stadium, was established in the early 1920s in memory of a past student of OHS. Walter B. Schafer graduated from the Ottumwa High School in 1903 with amazing athletic records and many college football opportunities. He went to the University of Chicago to play football under the famous coaching of Amos Alonzo Stagg, but Schafer left college early to fight in the war. Schafer was killed while serving in 1918. He was considered one of the greatest athletes in Iowa and especially in football, which is why the Ottumwa Stadium is now known as Schafer Stadium.

To address the growing student population, the Ottumwa Community School District began construction on the current high school building at the same location as the Adams School in 1921. The "new" high school was completed in 1923. As part of the construction, the Adams School was lifted from its foundation and moved east—it would serve as a building for vocational classes at the new high school.

Ottumwa High School as it stands today opened on August 29, 1923 to grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. It reportedly cost just over one million dollars to complete.