Bellevue School District

Eastside Stories: The Highland School Bell

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and famil…

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Article by Barb Williams

Stevenson School has a wonderful thing,

If you touch it, you can make it ring.

It rang out over the countryside,

And graced the bell tower with scholarly pride.

The Bellevue School District is in the process of bringing its schools up to date technologically, educationally and facility-wise.  A new Wilburton Elementary School was completed in 2019 on Main Street at Wilburton Hill. A new Stevenson Elementary School was recently completed on NE 8th Street. And construction, of a remodeled Highland Middle School on Bel-Red Road, is in progress. Historically, two of these schools have something in common. But which two? The answer lies in the large bell that hangs at the front of Stevenson Elementary School. If you ring the bell, you will hear the deeply melodic sounds of history that rang out over the Highland countryside where the bell began it’s journey. So let us go back to a time before the bell arrived and was placed in the bell tower of the Old Highland School.

The Highland School bell in front of the new Stevenson Elementary School on NE 8th Street

The Highland School bell in front of the new Stevenson Elementary School on NE 8th Street

In the mid-1880s, Matt Murdock and William Shiach came from Manitoba to settle in the Highland area of Bellevue. Murdock built a log cabin on his land, but decided to leave the area. At that time he sold the cabin and property to William Shiach. In 1887 the cabin became the first school in the area. It was known as the Claim Cabin School. There were thirteen students and one teacher; Mr. Daniel Collins, who was paid forty dollars per month. He worked a three-month term. The only roads nearby were the “Newcastle Trail” that ran close to the present 140th NE and connected Redmond to the coal mines at Newcastle. The other road (now 24th NE) ran from Lake Washington to the Highlands. Both were small, unpaved roads. It was along these roads that students came to the Claim Cabin School.

In 1890 a new school was built on an acre of land. It was called The Highland School. A.B. Huxford gave the land to the Highland School District No. 57. The land was given with the provision that it be used as a school for the next ten consecutive years. The building was improved and additions were added between 1910 and 1912. But the excitement came when in 1915 a huge 200 pound bell was placed in the bell tower. It’s melodic sound could be heard far and wide calling the children to school at 8:30am and again when it was time for students to enter the schoolhouse. The bell became the time piece for the local people. Perhaps Mrs. Tosh and Miss Albrecht, teachers at the Old Highland School in 1916, summoned their students to class by ringing the bell.  However, they were not the only teachers to ring the bell, Mr. Walter Stevenson may have rung it as well because he began teaching at the school in 1933. Then in 1935 he and the bell were moved to a new brick Highland school that was built at 15027 NE Bel-Red Road. The huge bell was set in the front yard between two concrete stantions. The school was built with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds. The Old Highland School was sold to the W.A. Ashton family who fixed it up as a residence. They lived in the historic schoolhouse from the 1940s to 1960s. In the following years, the building was occupied by several businesses. Mrs. Camille Armor saved it from demolition when it was threatened by I-520 construction. The building was moved 400 yards from its original site to NE 29th Place. Corporate Express bought the historic building but it was later razed due to further road construction.

In 1955, a third Highland School was built at 142nd Avenue and NE 8th in Bellevue. The   brick building from the Highland Elementary School on Bel-Red Road was incorporated into the buildings of the new Highland Middle School. The old brick building is still visible today.

Mr. Stevenson, who had been a principal at the Old Highland School and also at the new brick Highland Elementary School, became principal at the NE 8th Street Highland Elementary School. He and the bell moved together to the new school. When he retired in 1964, the Highland Elementary School was renamed Stevenson Elementary School. The bell hung in a bell garden at the school with a plaque that read, “Stevenson Bell Garden dedicated May 31, 1991 by the students, staff and parents of Stevenson Elementary School to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Highland School bell originally dedicated September 23, 1915 and to commemorate the heritage of the Highland School 1887 - 1890 - 1935 - 1957  Walter S. Stevenson Elementary School”

Presently the bell and plaque have been moved to the new Stevenson Elementary School. You can experience both there --- a piece of tangible history.

Old Highland School teachers: Mrs. Tosh and Miss Albrecht 1916.

Old Highland School teachers: Mrs. Tosh and Miss Albrecht 1916.

Many thanks to the Bellevue School District for preserving the bell: a treasured and historic artifact. Its journey through the Highland Schools is fascinating. And now you know what the Highland Middle School and Stevenson Elementary School have in common.

The Highland School bell in front of the new Stevenson Elementary School on NE 8th Street

Sources:

Bellevue Schools Timeline,   by Mary Ellen Piro

The Little Red Schoolhouse,   by Dixie Wynn

Eastside Stories: Factoria School

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and famil…

Eastside Stories is our way of sharing Eastside history through the many events, people places and interesting bits of information that we collect at the Eastside Heritage Center. We hope you enjoy these stories and share them with friends and family.

Anyone driving around the Bellevue area these days is familiar with the sight of new school buildings rising to completely replace those built not so very long ago, in the 1950’s and 60’s when the Eastside’s population was soaring. So it’s something of a surprise to discover that here and there remnants of the truly early school buildings live on, hidden in unexpected places. 

One of those early buildings is the Factoria School, built in 1929 on the side of the hillside overlooking what is now the I-90/ I-405 interchange.  An even earlier schoolhouse, a good-sized frame building, had been built in 1901, creating tiny Factoria School District #134, which never comprised more than one school.  At that time, the east-west route where I-90 now lies was a trail connecting Mercer Landing at Enatai to Robinson Landing on Lake Sammamish People moving north and south went most easily by boat on Lake Washington.  So it is perhaps not surprising that the schools that existed in those days served just their very immediate communities of farmers, loggers, and coal miners.  In 1901 the closest school houses to Factoria were at Wilburton, Newcastle, and near Phantom Lake.

1989.05.04, photo of schoolchildren on steps of school, 1924

1989.05.04, photo of schoolchildren on steps of school, 1924

In 1929 the original school house burned down and was replaced by a brick structure containing four classrooms.  A cement lintel over the front door was incised with the school’s name.  In 1942 District #134, along with five other local districts plus Union S High School, consolidated to become Overlake School District. Wartime brought other changes as well.  Factoria School was closed and turned over to the Army for use as a barracks. It was also one of several  locations on the Eastside that received loads of sand that residents were directed to pick up and keep on hand in case anticipated  bombings caused fires.  The building was returned to the school district after the war and reopened in 1950 as part of newly created Bellevue School District #405.

2005.0280.158, building after sale in 1961

2005.0280.158, building after sale in 1961

In the early 1950’s settlement was still sparse east of what is now I-405:  Somerset, Eastgate and Lake Hills lay in the future.  Factoria’s students, first through fourth graders in four classrooms, came largely from the communities of Norwood Village, Horizon View and Hilltop plus families along Newport Wa, Richards Road, and the lake shore south to Hazelwood. They moved to Enatai School after fourth grade.  One resident who attended the school at that time recalled the year that the entire school went all in for the March of Dimes.  Kids brought in dimes that were stuck onto a long roll of adhesive tape, marked on the back with a different color for each grade. They raised $65.10 and also wrote letters to children at Children’s Orthopedic Hospital in  Seattle who were polio patients. (In those years the fear of contracting polio was very much on children’s minds.)

2013.046.086, Factoria School fire, 1960

2013.046.086, Factoria School fire, 1960

In 1957 a larger school, Woodridge Elementary, opened, and little Factoria School was dedicated to special services personnel but still served as a polling place for two precincts.   In 1960 it burned but wasn’t destroyed.  In 1961 the school district sold the building to Farwest Electronics.  The lintel inscribed “Factoria” was cut away and eventually donated to the Bellevue Historical Society.  For several years it rested beneath trees at Woodridge Elementary.  When that school was torn down and replaced with a new structure in 2008, the lintel was returned to the Eastside Heritage Center, where it now resides, safe and dry but quite unobserved, in the basement of McDowell House.

And what of the old school building?  Against all odds, it would seem, it still lives on.  S.E. 32nd St. dead ends beyond East Shore Unitarian Church in front of a contemporary looking building housing Seattle King County Realtors Association and other offices. Hidden beneath the new façade, the old brick building, now 90 years old, continues to serve a useful purpose to yet another resident on Woodridge Hill.

 By: Margaret - EHC Volunteer


Special thanks to Mary Ellen Piro for previous research into this topic. She left her notes and findings to EHC.


Our Mission To steward Eastside history by actively collecting, preserving, and interpreting documents and artifacts, and by promoting public involvement in and appreciation of this heritage through educational programming and community outreach.

Our Vision To be the leading organization that enhances community identity through the preservation and stewardship of the Eastside’s history.


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