In October of 1916, McKeesport Technical High School, known forever after as Tech High, formally was dedicated.  Built on the old Evans homestead on Cornell Street, the cost of the land was $40,000 and the building cost was estimated to be $285,000.  At the dedication on October 6, 1916, a "large attendance of parents and students attended the ceremony on the campus in front of the new building, and in the evening a memorial tablet of the first school house was unveiled by the Daughters of the American Revolution."

According the The Daily News of October 5, 1916, the dedicatory exercises promised to be "the finest and most elaborate ever held in the city."  They began with a 2:00 p.m. parade that the paper said would be "the largest of its kind ever held in the city."  

The Class of 1917, numbering 158 students, was the first to graduate from Tech High, which the students by that time had nicknamed, the "White Castle on the Hill."

The 1961-62 school year opened the doors to the new Senior High School and Tech High then became McKeesport Junior High School for the district's seventh, eighth, and ninth graders.  McKeesport, by its own admission a conservative school district, was the last of the 23 school districts in the state to accept and implement the junior high school program.  For decades, ninth graders were housed in the Shaw Avenue and George Washington (built in 1929) buildings, while the seventh and eighth graders attended various district elementary schools.

War War Memorial Field, adjacent to Tech, grew out of a plan of the McKeesport Patriotic Association while America still was at war (1918).  Although the park portion of the project was rejected by city voters, the school board proceeded with the purchase of several hundred feet of hillside from the Evans estate for $15,000.  A portion was leveled off, and the football teams practiced there after school.  In  1925 the idea for an athletic field developed, but it was several years before the project with its new stone stadium bleachers was completed.

Until 1979, commencement ceremonies took place at World War Memorial Field.  There, from the highest rows of the bleachers on a clear June evening, spectators could gaze out over the Monongahela River valley and the mighty mills that lined the shores prior to the collapse of big steel in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

The stadium was demolished in 1999 as part of a renovation project.  At that point, the concrete bleachers were crumbling and posed a safety hazard.

The first addition to the building was in 1924 and then in 1964 a cafeteria was added.    In 1979, it became Cornell Middle School with grades fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth and beginning with the 2000-2001 school year, Cornell Intermediate School, as it is know today, welcomed grades fourth, fifth, and sixth.

The information on this page was taken in part from the
McKeesport High School Alumni Directory
which was compiled by Alumni Research, Inc.
in conjunction with the Mon Valley Education Consortium.
For information regarding the Directory or to purchase the book,
please call Alumni Research, Inc. at 800-325-8664.  

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