History

 

 

Lake was established as a township in 1844. School records date back to 1849, when the trustees established two school districts. School organizations at that time in rural areas of Ohio consisted of district one-room schools organized as the increasing population made them necessary. By 1908, there were ten such schools in the township employing 13 teachers.

 

The first high school in the township was completed in 1909, a two-room frame building located in the geographical center of the township, where the Toledo Metcalf Airport is presently located. The first class of six people graduated from this Lake Township school in 1911. It was a two-year high school.

 

In 1915, the high school received state recognition as a first-grade high school and added a fourth year to its course of study. The first class of six people graduated from the four-year high school in 1917. During the next five years, the high school was enlarged to five rooms heated by a furnace. It provided facilities for education of all pupils in Lake Township from the seventh to twelfth grades.

 

Centralization of the Lake Township School District had been defeated by the voters in 1916, but on March 22, 1921, voters passed the question of centralization, “marking a new era in the educational history of the community.”

 

In 1923, Lake High School students began attending what is now the junior high school building located across from where the original high school building had been. There were 386 students in the school system at that time.

 

In 1928, the student body had increased so that it was necessary to construct a portable building to take care of the overflow. Three years later another portable building had to be erected.

 

In May 1934, the Millbury Village School District became a part of the Lake Township School District. With increased attendance the voters realized the need for a new building and approved a bond issue on November 6, 1945, for $385,000. Since this was the end of World War II and prices were climbing, it was necessary’ to pass a second bond issue of $340,000 on November 5, 1950.

 

The present high school was occupied for the first time on September 8, 1953. On May 11, 1953, the Walbridge School District was accepted into the Lake School System and thus all of Lake Township became a part of one school district.

 

Lake High School was “Dedicated to the Youth of Our Community” on January 19, 1954 The program of that service has been a valuable source of information on the history of the school system.

 

Additions to the high school building were made in 1954, 1960, 1968, and the cafeteria and music areas were enlarged in 1973. The student enrollment has grown from 1,263 in 1953, to 2,214 in 1981. The Class of 1981 is joining many students who through the last 70 years have become alumni of Lake Local Schools.

 

The Aura staff wishes to thank Miss Edna Keller, who graduated from Lake in 1922, and was a teacher in Lake Local Schools from 1924 to 1967, for much of the above information. She has saved pamphlets and yearbooks dating back to 1935 from which statistics were taken.)