Old Port Orford School(s)

The first Port Orford grade school when it was situated on Jackson Street across from the Nygren Hotel, built in abt. 1880 and use was discontinued in 1913. You can see the school in an early “panoramic” image of the town taken ca. 1902 mapped for posterity by Pat Masterson and Alan Mitchell.

Detail of an early “panoramic” image showing the school. [View full photograph]

The next photo is the Elementary through High School built in 1913 on the corner of 11th and Oregon Street where the current grade school’s (Driftwood) ball field is.

Port Orford High School in 1919 when it was located where Driftwood School is now.
View – Port Orford SW. The School Building is shown to the right of the snag in the forefront.
A mysterious tripod structure north of the school could be a bell or water tower
Port Orford Grade School and High School circa 1913 (Detail of photo above)

in 1927, the High School relocated to a new building on Oregon Street (photos below) while the Junior High and Elementary School continued daily operations in the 1913 building.

You can see the school building’s telltale double roof in this street view of the town in 1940.
The High School building housed the Junior High School when this photo was taken c1970.

We’re still working on this page to include the history of when our current schools (Pacific High School, Driftwood and Blanco School which closed in 2010) were built. If you have any interesting history to share about our school buildings like when the Port Orford High School ( also known as Battle Rock Jr. High) was damaged during the Columbus Day Storm) … please contact us!

← Previous post

Next post →

7 Comments

  1. Carolyn Bess

    Thank you for these photos of the schools! I was recently visiting Port Orford and these pictures mean a lot to me. I have great memories of Battle Rock Junior High.

  2. Thank you so much! I really appreciate these posts! Do you have any historical photos of the old White Hotel at 101 & Jackson?

  3. The following comment was sent via email from one of our readers.

    “Hi, I lived in Port Orford from 1961-1966 and was a 5th grader during the BIG BLOW. The elementary school lost the roof (as did the high school, 5 miles inland), but the most damage suffered by the junior high school was some roof damage to the gym and some broken damage. It was not SEVERELY damaged.”

    Thank you for the information!

  4. -I attended Port Orford grade school around 1955. Are there any class pictures available of the students around that time? Thanks.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.