Christopher Gist High School
Christopher Gist High School
Schools in Pound
The record is not clear as to when the first school
appeared in Pound. During the late 1880's school was
taught in the Old Methodist Church, later blown off its
foundation by a tornado. In the early 1900's a four-room
wooden schoolhouse was built on the same hill where the
church had stood.
The First Christopher Gist High
School
In the late 1920's a four-room brick schoolhouse
was built and opened as Christopher Gist High School
(C.G.H.S.).
First Christopher Gist High School
C.G.H.S. graduated its first Senior Class in 1928, a
class of one, Thelma Roberson. In 1930, Principal Luther
Addington left Christopher Gist High School to become
principal at Wise. He was replaced by O. M. Morris. In
that same year C.G.H.S. became an accredited high
school.
In December, 1942 the C.G.H.S. building burned to the ground.
In December, 1942 the C.G.H.S. building after it burned.
The old four-room wooden schoolhouse was brought back into service, along with several other buildings around town, including the Methodist Church, pressed into service as a school.
Christopher Gist High School Reconstructed
Looking
just as she did the day the class of 1953 left
her...except more forsaken and empty.
Meanwhile, as the town made do amid what was probably not as chaotic as it sounds, a new Christopher Gist High School was constructed and began operation in the fall of 1944. (For some of us, particularly those of us who lived in the upper reaches of the Pound basin, it may come as a surprise that CGHS, as we knew it, was only three years old when we started 7th Grade there in 1947 - amazing!)
Christopher Gist High School
As a name, Christopher Gist High School ceased to exist at Thanksgiving, 1953, when the new, larger, etc. Pound High School opened.
According to Phyllis Williams, a publication called "The Tomahawk" was produced monthly at Pound High School until that name was dropped in favor of the "Wildcat" in the early 1980's. Likewise, tomahawks and arrowheads now have no currency anywhere around Pound. The spirits of Christopher Gist and the Crane still linger about the hills and valleys of the Pound basin.
Life after Christopher Gist High School
Pound Town Hall
Befittingly our brief review of now-ancient local history ends here - right here where "the old CGHS building" languished after we left her in 1953, in between unsuccessful efforts to become a funeral home. We are made happy by our discovery that she has been resurrected as the Pound Town Hall! Our prediction is that she will make it this time. Perhaps she previously had her eye on the wrong type of "tician". (You know... politician versus mortician!) From deep within our hearts we say, "Fare thee well old CGHS...fare thee well."
