By Matthew Morales, Staff Writer
HERITAGE: The historic story of Riverside Poly High, unveiled
For the majority who attend our school, most don’t know about the history behind Riverside Polytechnic, and for others, all that may be known is our establishment date. But what is our entire historic story?
It dates back to the year 1887, when the City of Riverside, which was established just seventeen years prior, wanted to have a form of higher education available to its students. The city created Riverside High School, the first high school in the city, located in the Downtown Riverside area. Riverside High School graduated only a total of seven students in its first class in 1890. Later in 1910, when the school’s population grew to an estimated 500 students, the school realized that its current grounds were not large enough to accommodate all of the new students. In the year 1911, Riverside High School split genders, dividing the school in half, creating an all-boys school which was granted the name ‘Riverside Polytechnic,’ and an all-girls school which was never given a name. The all-boys school was moved to a new campus located on Terracina Ave, which is now a small road in the Riverside City College campus. The all-girls school was then moved to a building downtown on 9th Street.
Riverside City College also traces its roots back to Riverside Poly High, when in 1916, the high school started offering postgraduate classes to former high school students. Those classes eventually became too big for the school and later, the city created RCC just adjacent to the high school.
In 1924, the Riverside School Board reunited the boys’ and girls’ high schools into one school on the Terracina Avenue campus. Our school’s signature green and orange colors also came about during this time, resulting from a combination of the colors from the separated boys and girls high schools. That same year, the School Board also created the city’s first junior high schools throughout the city, using some of the old buildings such as the original Riverside High School campus.
Lunging towards the 1950s, the city kept growing, which in result brought more students to the city’s only high school. In 1956, Riverside Polytechnic High School needed to host double sessions due to the fact that the campus and classrooms weren’t big enough to accommodate the student population. Because of this the city created a new high school just a few miles south from Riverside Poly’s location during that time. The newly built high school would then be titled ‘Ramona High School.’ In the 1960s, this situation would occur two more times. When again Riverside Poly was not large enough for the student body. In 1961, the district would then create Rubidoux High School, before it became part of the Jurupa Unified School District. 1965 would bring about Poly’s most notorious rival, John W. North High School, named after one of Riverside’s original founders. In 1965 when North High School was established, Poly also moved to a new campus which is currently located at Central and Victoria. Our school’s campus is always changing in many ways, such as re-locating and more recently in the summer of 2020, a massive renovation project that is being taken underway.
It is true that Riverside Polytechnic High School has had a very political and patriotic background throughout our history. In 1924, the school board and Poly High took part in a controversial political rally hosted at the school. More recently, Riverside Polytechnic High School has also taken part in political engagements. In 2012, the student body went as far as having violent disputes and debates on the campus, due to the election results, when President Obama was the projected winner. The Riverside Police was also called in to act as security during this time. Starting in 1917, one of the country’s oldest Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs was established. It was the second of six original JROTC programs in the nation, and the oldest one west of the Mississippi. Riverside Polytechnic Junior ROTC is currently the oldest active unit in the nation. In addition, during World War II, the high school created a club titled the “High School Victory Corps,” a group dedicated for young high school aged girls to help the war effort by making cloth bandages and other necessary supplies needed for our heroes fighting the war overseas.
School life and culture doesn’t end here though. Riverside Polytechnic has some very old and unique traditions throughout its lifetime. One such unique tradition is the naming of classes. Each graduating class would be dubbed a unique nickname. Examples of these nicknames include: the “Stags of 1916” (class of 1916), the “Geeks” (class of 1951), and the “Orts” (class of 1953). This naming ceremony faded away with time and is no longer a school tradition. Another tradition is the name of our yearbook, the Koala. This name comes from the mascot our school used to have, a koala bear, before it was later changed to a bear. Riverside Poly also had a time capsule ceremony which with each graduating class would leave behind a time capsule, which was located in front of our school’s library. Unfortunately, this school tradition ended and the black square tiles appear to no longer be there due to recent renovations. The bold, orange letter “R” seen on varsity jackets and varsity sweaters are also in reference to our original name and first initial, “R” for Riverside. Our school has a history that is definitely unique, and one that no other school has. The Bears of green and orange will continue to prosper and our historic story of tradition and heritage will always continue to be written with time.
-Old photographs and postcard paintings belong to respected owners and artists
-Modern photograph of RCC taken by photographer Matthew Morales