Firebird65

Here's a map of Aldine High expansions. Red = 1960 expansion Yellow = 1970 expansion Blue = 1973 expansion White = 1978 expansion Green = 1997 expansion

Here's the front of the school from 1964: <

Here's some views from around the SMN Marrs campus, courtesy of the 1940-41 Marrs Roundup yearbook:

OK, let's try this again. I looked once more at the map on the Harris County Archives and I looked at the election report provided to me by isuredid that gave the survey boundaries of the original AISD. That map from the Harris County Archives is not correct. This would be the correct map, according to the boundaries as described in the election report. (Basically the boundary line headed east when it intersected West Montgomery Road at the Phillip Johnson survey. Today it heads west). Sorry for the confusion, but that map was hard to read. Here now are the western boundaries as described in the election report. The green would be what Aldine annexed from North Houston, the yellow from White Oak. The A is today's Aldine High School. The M was the 1935 Marrs School (now the Lane Center).

That I don't know. I've never bothered investigating them much further than that article in the Texas Handbook as apparently they had little impact on Aldine ISD or Aldine High School.

Yes, it was hard to read parts of that map, particularly in the southwestern corner of AISD. But I'm fairly confident I got it pretty close. There once was a poster here named isuredid who gave me a report that detailed which surveys were included in the original AISD and that mentioned the 91 square mile figure. I can take that report and compare it to the survey boundaries on that map and get an exact picture of the borders. But that report is very detailed and hard to go through, so that's a rainy day project. As for the laws you are refering to, those were the Gilmer-Aikin laws of 1949. They were pretty contentious. Don't let anyone fool you and say times were more genteel back then and politicians actually worked together. The hearings were quite nasty with lots of name calling. Here's something on them from the Texas Handbook: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mlg01

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It really pays to read other threads on here. I read earlier this evening the one entitled "Map of Houston's Wards" and it have a very interesting and valuable link to the Harris County Archives web page. On there was a map from 1935 detailing the original boundaries of Aldine ISD. The map was pretty hard to read, but if I read it right, this should be a pretty close spproximation of AISD's boundaries when in was created in May 1935. The district is now 111 square miles, but it was only 91 square miles then, before it annexed parts of two neighboring districts. The green shaded area is what AISD picked up from the North Houston district (49) later in 1935 and the yellow is what it is left today of what it received from White Oak (26) in 1937. It annexed more of White Oak, but as was mentioned in a post earlier in this thread, it had to cede that area (which included Oak Forest) to the Houston ISD. I believe with all the info I have, I can make a more detailed map, but this approximation should do for now. Oops... forgot to add... the star is the current Aldine High School. A is the location of the original 1912 Aldine school house. B is the Brubaker schoolhouse. H is the Higgs schoolhouse and W is the Westfield schoolhouse. These four schoolhouses were combined into the Marrs School when it opened in 1933.

I've wondered that too. Perhaps in the same spot, just not as in a large an office? The yearbooks don't have many detailed pictures of the front of the building. There was a circular drive and a covered walkway where students would wait, but beyond that it's really difficult to tell if the area by the library was the end or if maybe there was something in the area where the expansion took place that they dismantled and built over. The library was also expanded in that addition, but I sure don't see where. The photos of the library before the addition show a bright, airy space. It sure wasn't that way afterwards. I guess the back of the library (which would have then been the front of the building) had some windows that let in sunshine. It's very dark in there now. BTW... the mini-gym opened in the 1978-79 school year. I see on wikipedia it's been worded to suggest it was built in 1970. As far as air conditioning goes, that I'm working on. Unfortunately, I only have the 1972-73 and 1973-74 yearbooks from that time and got to see the 1969-70 yearbook at the school. None of those mention air conditioning. The library did not have the 1970-71 or 1971-72 yearbooks. When I was at Hidden Valley Elementary, they added A/C in my second grade year (1973-74). I do remember going to the school and sweating like a roasting pig in Cluster A in first grade (we used temporary buildings for kindergarten). But we were all so thrilled to get A/C. I guess AISD spent the early 1970s adding air conditioning. I presume whatever bond issue was passed that provided the money for the AHS expansions also paid for the A/C. The interior pictures of the AHS building in the 1960s show a high, loft-like ceiling in the cafeteria and student lounge area with lots of exposed girders. I have a picture of the student lounge from 1972 that shows a low, false ceiling has been added. I'll have to look more closely at the pics from the 1972-73 and 1973-74 yearbooks for more clues. Finally, to close out this long meandering post, I saw in a picture of a very intersting shot from the 1970s of one of the front entrance pillars. On this pillar was a plaque that read "Aldine High School Additions" and listed all the school board members. Unfortunately, someone is blocking part of the plaque and I can't see what the rest says. I do not know if this is an earlier version on the plaque in front of the office that reads "1972" but it's not the same plaque. I can't read the whole thing, but it does say "Additions" in the plural use, meaning more than one. I'll scan it and try to blow it up. I have no clue if that plaque is still there as I walked on the side to get into the front door when I went, not in between the pillars.

OMG! Not "chef driven"?!? You've convinced me. If only you had found this key bit of info out and told us dozens of posts ago rather than waste precious words on silly nonsensical and circular arguments. Nonetheless, I have now done a total 180 and completely support you. I'm going to Facebook right now to join the anti-Wal Mart group. I only hope they still have signs left for my yard. This thing has got to be stopped.

I have in my possession Aldine's yearbooks from 1976 to 1996. In them (especially some of the early ones) there are shots in the ads section of some of the stores in the mall. Nothing spectacular, mind you. No pics of the Sears or Foley's. But I believe there may be a few worth posting. Obviously the BEST source for information would be the mall itself, but I've got $5 no one there knows a doggone thing about any history of the mall and what little history there is is so poorly organized it's almost not worth going through. Second best place would be the two special newspaper advertising sections the Houston newspapers put out when the mall opened in 1976. I've been told by the Chronicle that they do not own the copyright on the advertising. That resides with the advertiser. And according to copyright law, copyrighted material published or created before 1978 had a copyright good for 28 years (which would be up to August 2004, in this case), when it could be renewed. But c'mon... you really think Dillard's or Macy's is going to bother renewing copyrights on obscure ads from Joske's or Foley's? So I would feel absolutely confident we could post the ads and photos here without legal problem. However, when you make a printout from the UH microfilm, you lose the clarity of the photo. The ads would come out fine. Those could then be scanned. But the only way to get a photo off the microfilm is to take a picture of the reader's screen. That never seems to work out well. I'm busy working on a history of Aldine High School (if anyone has anything to contribute to that, please see the corresponding thread in "Other Houston Neighborhoods) and may not be able to make it to UH any time soon. If I do, and if I remember, I'll print out one or the other (they're pretty much identical sections). I will scan and post the Greenspoint related photos and ads from the Aldine High yearbook. Those are not copyrighted (I've checked).

Here's the pic of the staff moving into the new administrative offices in August 1973, courtesy of the 1973-74 Aldine High Roundup yearbook.

Don't get your hopes up. The pic isn't that great. None of the 1970s yearbooks were anything special. Most of the pictures are poorly composed, have bad contrast and are ever so slightly out of focus. They are quite disappointing in comparison to the ones from the 1960s. There was a different sponsor in each decade and each had a different approach. The 1960s ones are more newsy while the 1970s ones tend to be more artsy.

OK, I have in front of me the 1973-74 Aldine High Roundup yearbook and it confirms that the new front end addition of the 500 and 600 halls and administrative offices opened in August 1973. It has a photo of the staff moving in, which I'll scan and add here later. This shows why you have to be really careful with historic research as the plaque by the office says 1972. Always get more than one source!

In 1956, there is only one gym. As you can see from this shorter article from October 26, 1956, it says the gym can be divided into girls and boys sections. As for the showers, I only took maybe three. Each of those were after swimming and I rinsed both me and my bathing suit off at the same to avoid smelling like chlorine the rest of the day (I always had second period gym, every year while I was there). For the most part, especially after my sopohmore year, PE was a joke. All we really did my last two years was play basketball. Well... actually the black dudes played on either goal of the main court and every dumb white kid (who were then the majority) who was dumb enough to play was crammed onto the four remaining side goals - meaning you could either have games of 20 on 20 or... like me... you just sat and talked with your friends for the 45 minutes of class or brought your books and studied. So you never would break a sweat and hence there was no need to take a shower or even wash your gym clothes for weeks at a time as they actually never got dirty. In the early 1980s, we had to take 3 1/2 years of PE and a half year of health. If I remember correctly, the state amended that after I left, requiring only 1 1/2 years of PE and a half year of health. Wish they'd have done it when I was there. Shoot, I'd have rather taken Super Dooper Advanced Triganometry (and I'm a Math dummy) or even Home Ec. Or even better, just have had an hour knocked off my day.

Not sure how well this is going to work, but I'll give it a shot. Here's a story on the Aldine High gym written just two months after the new (current) school opened. From the November 23, 1956, edition of the Aldine High Comet:

Here's a story on the first Vaquera drill team: Aldine Vaqueras Promote Spirit; Back Team With Drills and Yells November 27, 1957 "Left, right! Left, right! Swing those arms! Pick up those knees! We want to look sharp on that field on Friday night!" Those are the words you might here if you dropped in on a practice session of the girls' drill team, the Vaqueras. This new organization has been organized in order to promote school spirit, back the team in its activities, and encourage its members to maintain a high standard of scholastic work and citizenship. In order to become a member of the Vaqueras, a girl must maintain a C average in scholastics and an A average in conduct. One B per six weeks is allowed. The Vaqueras, who organized themselves in August of this year, have drilled in every football game since September 27. Along with the band, they have participated in halftime activities with precision drilling and formations. The Vaqueras are sponsored by Mrs. Olivia Moore and Mrs. Betty Allison. They are led by Major Bonnie Cavner, Captains Waw Weese Rigsdell and Patricia Cockrell. These officers are clad in white Western attire, while the regular drill team uniform consists of white blouse, blue gored skirt, and white cowboy boots and hats. Other officers are as follows: Lieutenants Carol Ann Ingram, Sandra Sapora, and Sammie Lowance; Top Sergeants Mary Ellen Ward and Rebecca Diaz; Sergeants Kathleen Childress, Barbara Childress, Jo Ann McMullen, Jane Ann Avara, and Jeraldine Niederhofer; Manager Kathleen Dunn; and Majorettes Linda Rogers, June Roark, and Faye Nicholson.

Apparently not. My senior year (1983-84) the student council bought a juke box for the cafeteria. It played the same three songs over and over and over again: Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top, C'mon Feel The Noize by Quiet Riot and some gawdawful song by Alabama or some other country group I've thankfully blocked out of my mind. Bad memories all. The best thing that ever happened to that juke box was when they hauled it away.

Yeah, I remember those windowless classrooms. I had health class when I was in there. I only remember because I had this really tall black teacher named Mrs. Clark as my teacher. Some fool asked her on the first day of class if she had played basketball. Bad move. I do not know when those additions were made. They well may have been done at nearly the same time as the others. Here is the story from the January 29, 1970 issue of the Mustang. Check out the end of the story that seems to lead credence to that idea: Aldine Classroom Construction Well on Way to Being Complete By Phil Hahn The arrival of 1970 has brought many new things into the world we live in, but one of the most important things to the people of Aldine will be the completion of the construction now underway at Aldine Senior High School. "There has been a tremendous amount of progress and with the new facilities Aldine Senior High will provide the students with a top-notch educational program," stated Mr. Jim Hailey, Aldine principal. In the new science wing which will open soon, there is a total of six new science lecture rooms and two new labs, a biology lab and a general physical science lab. These new rooms will eliminate the shuffling of classes and eliminate the use of labs as classrooms. Mr. Hailey expects the other new wing on the far northern side of the campus to be finished by the first of April if the weather stays good and there are no other hold-ups. This new wing will have two new typing rooms, a business machines room, air electronics room, and air-conditioned cosmetology rooms. Two new art rooms and two new drawing rooms for vocational drafting and mechanical drafting will also be added in the north wing. Mr. Hailey went on to say that the history and other social studies classes will move out of the temporary buildings into the north wing upon its completion. The extra cafeteria space has been added and is complete except for an absence of windows in the new doors. A juke box in the cafeteria will be a welcome addition to the students when the doors are finished and the cafeteria can be locked.

Yeah, I see that on the 1973 photo. I've zoomed it to 104 ft and it doesn't look like they've done much. If I understand it right, those photos are taken in May. At least those are when the ones at the Texas Room downtown were taken and I would presume these are the same pics. If it's May 1973 in that picture (and that's only an assumption), they would have really had to huff it to make it by the fall of that year. I saw the 1973-74 yearbook on Friday and it doesn't mention anything. But that wasn't a very good yearbook. The design was OK, but the pictures were all fuzzy and unusable for my purposes in the school history report I am writing. I plan on going back in about three weeks to look at more of the old school newspapers. Hopefully they'll have a story about it either in construction or when it is nearing completion, as they did with the 300 and 400 hall expansions. If you also toggle back and forth between the 1964 and 1973 pictures, you'll notice the mini-gym is there in 1973, but not in 1964. (The 1973 picture is awful. The 1964 picture is so much clearer.) There's a lot to research, which is what makes this a fun project and more challenging than the football report. That merely required patience as the games were pretty much always on 10 Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays between September and November. This project requires more detective work.

This thread really needs to be moved to the Houston History thread. I guess the mods read these threads. How about it? Anyway, speaking of history, now that I'm home and on my own computer, I can start posting some of the things I found during my visit to Aldine Friday. First off, I found the info I was really looking for. The uppermost part of the 300 hall (that is, the part with the highest room numbers) and the 400 hall were completed in the spring of 1970, according to the school newspapers of the time. I'd heard they were built any time from 1964 to 1973. No, it was 1970. So they came before the front addition to the school. I'm still looking for that date as well, although the marker in front of the main office says 1972. Don't know if that means that when they started or finished the project. The main marker in front of the auditorium, the one that says 1956, that refers to the completion date, so I'm assuming at this point that the one by the office is the same.

I just came not 30 minutes ago from a visit to Aldine High School and I regret to inform everyone here in the Great Bathroom Door Debate of 2011 that I cannot give an update at this time as to whether the restroom stalls have doors. Why? Because the bathrooms themselves have doors with combination locks! And I didn't have the combination. I was too embarrassed to go ask. I did go through a bunch of yearbooks and old issues of the Comet and Mustang newspapers and have a lot of stuff to report. I'll start posting as soon as I get back to my side of town and can process my pictures on my computers. I can tell you this: I confirmed via an article in the Comet that the current school did open in September 1956. C.F. Kiefner was the architect and the T.B. Hubbard Construction Co. served as contractor. The school was dedicated in March 1957. I have no idea why it was dedicated six months later. Guess it took time to arrange the ceremony.

Looks like a nice school. Unlike the dump Aldine is. Oh well, guess for a 55 year old lady she looks decent enough.

The Sears isn't just empty, it's closed. Macy's and Dillard's are the only anchors left. That Macy's keeps getting greener and greener. I don't believe it was originally that color but more tannish in appearance. Knowing that mall, it's probably some kind of mold or fungus.

There once was someone on here who wrote she was the mascot for the Aldine High School twirling troupe. I don't remember the person's name, but I do remember she said there was a photo of her as the mascot in the 1940 yearbook and she was wondering if anyone had a copy. Well, I came across a copy and here is that photo. Unfortunately, I do not know how to reach her. So... I hope she someday finds this post and if so, I am sorry I can't remember the name: Here's a smaller version: