Ponce High School
| Ponce High School | |
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Partial front facade view of Ponce High School in Ponce, Puerto Rico
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| Address | |
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37 Cristina Street Ponce, Puerto Rico 00731 |
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| Information | |
| School type | Public secondary |
| Founded | 1902 |
| School district | Ponce District II |
| Principal | Sra. Jennifer Machado |
| Grades | 9–12 |
| Enrollment | 1650+ (2010) |
| Language | Spanish |
| Area | Ponce Historic Zone |
| Color(s) | Black, & Red |
| Mascot | Lion |
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Ponce High School
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| Location | Cristina Street, Ponce, Puerto Rico |
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| Coordinates | 18°00′42″N 66°36′37″W / 18.01155°N 66.61026°WCoordinates: 18°00′42″N 66°36′37″W / 18.01155°N 66.61026°W |
| Area | <1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | by 1915 |
| Architect | Adrian C. Finlayson (?) |
| Architectural style | Neoclassical |
| NRHP Reference # | 87001310 |
| Added to NRHP | August 4, 1987 |
The Ponce High School is public educational institution in Ponce, Puerto Rico, offering grades ten through twelve. The school's main building is a historic structure located on Cristina Street, in the Ponce Historic Zone. From its beginning the school has secured a unique place in Puerto Rico's educational history. Of over 3,000 schools erected in Puerto Rico in the first quarter of the twentieth century, Ponce High was the largest, "at a time enrolling more students than all the other Puerto Rico high schools combined", and for many years enrolling more students than any other high school in Puerto Rico. The cost of the building in 1915 dollars was $150,000 USD. The building was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on August 4, 1987. The school has the only diamond-level DECA chapter in Puerto Rico.
The history of the institution dates back to January 1899. On 25 January 1899 a historic fire took place on the lot currently occupied by the High School. The fire is known as the "Fuego del Polvorín" (the Fire of the Ammunitions Depot). At that time the lot was used as a U.S. Army ammunitions depot. Today a register marks the location of the fire. In November 1899, the new American government authorized the establishment of a public secondary school in Ponce modeled after the American school system. In 1903 the Roosevelt Industrial School was built on land where the US military had its munitions depot that caused the fire. Five years after El Polvorin, in the 1904-1905 timeframe, a two-story building with 12 classrooms was built to accommodate the Ruiz Gandia Grammar School in the same spacious El Polvorin lot. The first class of Ponce High School students formed in 1902. As new facilities were completed, the students were moved to them. For the 1907-1908 school year another building was built called the McKinley building, and the Ponce High students occupied said facilities as well. Construction of the now-historic Ponce High School building on Cristina Street started in 1915 and the building was inaugurated in 1920.
The school is located in barrio Tercero. It faces Cristina street to the north and is bounded on the south by Comercio street (PR-133), on the west by Salud street, and on the east by Trujillo street. Its location is only two blocks from Plaza Las Delicias. It is also diagonally across from the Ponce Free School of Music, the old location of Liceo de Ponce (Liceo Ponceño), an early 20th-century girls-only school. It is also one block from Teatro La Perla.
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