In the beginning...
Ten public-spirited citizens of Tucson in 1867 began the partnership
of community and educators which has worked for children ever since.
It was November 4, 1867, one month after enabling legislation was passed
by the Territorial Legislature, when John B. Allen, Charles H. Lord,
Mark Aldrich, M. J. Flaminez, Philip Drachman, John G. Capron, Sidney
R. DeLong, William H. Tonge, Leopoldo Carrillo, and S. B. Wine brought
a petition to the Pima County Board of Supervisors requesting that a
public school be established in the town of Tucson. The Pima County
Board of Supervisors decided twelve days later, on November 18, 1867,
that:
It is hereby ordered and decreed that all the Territory lying
and being within one mile each way from the Plaza de la Mesilla in
the town of Tucson be and the same is hereby declared a School District
to be known and styled School District No. 1 Pima County--and it is
further ordered that the Collector of Pima County proceed to collect
the one-half of one per cent on all taxable property within said School
District above described as assessed by him at his last assessment
and as corrected by the Board of Equalization.1
The Supervisors then appointed a School Committee composed of John
B. Allen, a retired merchant; William S. Oury, newspaperman and first
mayor of Tucson; and Francisco S. Leon, a former territorial legislator.
Early records are incomplete prior to 1884, as record-keeping and school
committee meetings were often casually conducted, and were referred
to sporadically in the territorial newspapers. A fire in the late 1800s
may have consumed other records.
The School Committee hired Augustus Brichta, 47 years of age, to be
the first school teacher in the new district. His qualifications for
the position included such prior occupations as saloon keeper, soldier
in the War with Mexico, unsuccessful gold miner, and legislative clerk.
The most compelling reason to hire him was that he was a graduate of
St. Louis University, as there were few educated men in the territory.
His school was a rented adobe building, 25 by 40 feet in size with a
dirt floor and roof, furnished with benches. Its location downtown was
probably near Stone and Pennington, although records are not exact.
With 55 "Mexican boys" enrolled2, the school commenced
in January, 1868, and was conducted for six months before it closed
for lack of funds. Brichta was paid for only four months.
For the next several years no tax-supported public school existed.
Several attempts were made by local citizens and religious groups to
provide private school education for boys or girls separately, with
limited success
Territorial school finance
Governor Anson P. K. Safford was an ardent supporter of public education.
His early attempts to persuade the Territorial Legislature to provide
public schools were met with disinterest. The Legislature was more concerned
with protection from Apache raids and crime in the territory. They were
skeptical of the acceptance of schools by the territorial settlers.
Safford enlisted the aid of Estevan Ochoa and Sam Hughes, respected
local merchants and politicians, in passing the legislation.
Finally, the last day of the 1871 legislative session saw the passage
of a school finance law which set a 10-cents per $100 property ad valorem
tax, to be collected by the County Boards of Supervisors for a Territorial
School Fund. It also permitted a 50-cents per $100 property ad valorem
tax to be set by the Boards of Supervisors in school districts. A Territorial
Board of Education was established to manage the school fund, to supervise
the distribution of the territorial school tax to the counties and to
select a uniform series of textbooks. Under the act, each district could
elect three School Trustees. Their duties were to provide for the establishment
of schools and employ teachers. They could levy and collect an additional
school district tax--above the 50 cents per $100 ad valorem tax--if
taxpayers of the district voted for the increase.3
The Congress Street School
The next public school in Tucson opened in the spring of 1872, with
enrollment limited to males between the ages of six and 21. Spanish
was their primary language, so John A. Spring, the second teacher hired,
taught by first giving instruction in Spanish, and then in English,
for a salary of $125 a month. John Spring was a native of Switzerland
where he had attended college. A Union Army veteran, he became a merchant,
a bartender, and later a brewer before becoming a school teacher. His
maximum enrollment was 138 with average daily attendance of about 98
students. Many of his textbooks had been contributed by Governor Safford.
The Governor also gave Spring $20 in prize money to be distributed to
students on recommendation of the teacher.
An article in the Arizona Citizen of March 16, 1872, described
the opening in hopeful terms: "Here is the first hopeful attempt
to truly harmonize the Mexican and American elements of this population.
These elements are here and will remain. The prevailing inability of
each to speak the other's tongue prevents a just understanding of the
motives of each. The free public school will frame the children's minds
aright in this respect."
In May, 1873, John Wasson, the editor of the Arizona Citizen,
wrote, "We want more good school ma'ms and must have them. Good
wages will be paid and when they get tired of teaching we will find
them all good husbands."4 At that same time, Spring
proposed to the board of trustees that his salary be increased by $25
a month (to $150). The trustees instead pointed out that two female
teachers, "school ma'ms," could be obtained for the amount
of his salary. He resigned, and was replaced by Miss Maria Wakefield
and Miss Harriet Bolton, the first female teachers in the district.
The ladies traveled by railroad and stagecoach to reach Tucson. As neither
lady knew Spanish they had to take language lessons from Spring in order
to teach. Miss Bolton married the editor of the Arizona Citizen
within a few months, and Miss Wakefield married Edward Nye Fish in March,
thereby ending their teaching careers.
The school term of 1877-78 had an enrollment of 130 boys and 66 girls
for ten months of schooling. A male principal, with the assistance of
one female and one male teacher, did the teaching. The girls were taught
in English in one room, with the primary boys receiving instruction
in Spanish and English in another. The principal taught the advanced
boys in English. Their curriculum included reading, arithmetic, algebra,
geography, spelling, English grammar, U. S. History, and English and
Spanish translations.
The Congress Street School, long since demolished, was the first publicly
constructed, rather than rented, facility of School District 1. The
sum of $9,782, including a $2000 loan, was spent to construct the three-room
school, which was located on the northwest corner of what is now Congress
and Sixth Street. No tax money was used to build the school; instead
funds were raised by cake sales, socials, contributions, and the sale
of a goat. The ladies of Tucson were responsible for the fund-raising
efforts.
Notes
1James F. Cooper, The First Hundred Years
The History of Tucson School District 1, Tucson, Arizona 1867-1967
p. 1.
2Ida Flood Dodge, Incidents and Thoughts
Concerning the Origin and Early History of Safford Junior High (Unpublished
manuscript May, 1943).
3Cooper, p. 9-10.
4James F. Cooper, The First Hundred Years
The History of Tucson School District 1, Tucson, Arizona 1867-1967
p. 14
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