By Diane Hettrick
Photos by Steven H. Robinson
Every time I publish articles about Kellogg Middle School, I get comments from readers that - it's not Kellogg - it's Morgan!
The Kellogg buildings had indeed been Thomas Hunt Morgan Junior High School. According to the history of the Shoreline School District "Shore to Shore and Line to Line" it opened in 1953, along with two other junior high schools.
Every time I publish articles about Kellogg Middle School, I get comments from readers that - it's not Kellogg - it's Morgan!
The Kellogg buildings had indeed been Thomas Hunt Morgan Junior High School. According to the history of the Shoreline School District "Shore to Shore and Line to Line" it opened in 1953, along with two other junior high schools.
Named after Nobel prize winners, the schools were Morgan, Nicholas Murray Butler, and President Thomas Woodrow Wilson.
Morgan opened with 600 students in grades 5, 6, and 7 under principal Elbert J. Honeycutt and vice-principal Lynn Waller.
During the school year 1953-54, Morgan was also used for evening recreation by U.S. Army troops stationed in Lake Forest Park. Prince of Peace Lutheran Church held services there before they built their own building.
During the twenty-plus years Morgan was open, the number of grade levels changed, other junior high schools opened and closed. Morgan had close to a thousand students for much of its life.
According to Shore to Shore, "Beginning in 1975, with the combination of the exodus of the Boeing workers and the conclusion of the WWII baby boomers passing through, the junior high enrollments in the Shoreline District began to decline."
At the end of the 1976-77 school year, Morgan was closed. It became district administrative offices for a time and then was closed and left empty.
Now, in 2020, the Morgan buildings have been completely demolished, to make way for a new Kellogg Middle School.
Source: Shore to Shore and Line to Line: A History of the Shoreline School District 1944-2004, by a writing group headed by Jack Rogers.
Source: Shore to Shore and Line to Line: A History of the Shoreline School District 1944-2004, by a writing group headed by Jack Rogers.
Thomas Hunt Morgan was a US geneticist who won the Nobel Prize-Medicine in 1933
ReplyDeleteWhat this story doesn't mention is that the Morgan buildings were renovated in the early 1980's after an arson fire burned part of the original Kellogg campus near Ballinger Way. Kellogg Middle School was relocated to the Morgan campus and has been located there longer than it was located near Ballinger.
ReplyDeleteNever knew why Kellogg was selected as the name instead of Morgan--Morgan grad '75
ReplyDelete