Harding High School: History

Warren G. Harding High School can trace its roots to 1801. A log cabin in Memorial Park in downtown Warren is a replica of the first building.

Warren School Administration, forerunner to the Warren Board of Education, was organized in 1818 and Warren Academy officially opened in 1820. William Holmes McGuffey, who went on to author the McGuffey Readers, the nation’s first textbooks used to educate students and a former president of Miami University, was rejected as a staff member.

Warren High School opened for instruction in 1849 in the area of North Park Avenue and Monroe Street. The building was eventually sold and moved and a new building constructed near the current district administration offices on Monroe. This building was used from 1856 to 1881. The first class of three students graduated in 1857. A third school was operated from 1882 to 1926.

During about 1913 or 1914, Trumbull Steel Co. began business in Warren, causing an increase in the city’s population, thus a new high school building was needed.

Warren G. Harding High School at Elm Road and Atlantic Street was dedicated Jan. 22, 1926, with 839 students. The first graduates were the January class of 1926.

With graduating classes numbering 800, the school became overcrowded. Warren Western Reserve High School opened in 1966 with an enrollment of 1,610 in four grades.

With the decline in enrollment during the 1980s, it was decided to return to one high school, and Western Reserve saw its last high school graduating class of 265 in 1990.

Source: “A History of Warren High Schools” by Sue Kindelberger