Maybe you’ve heard the joke that your parents or grandparents had to walk uphill both ways to get to school. Well for students of Council Bluffs High School in the late 1800s, there may have been some truth to this. Built in 1870, Council Bluffs High School was the first high school in the city. The three story structure was located high up on a five acre bluff overlooking the city, which today is Kirn Park. The Historical Society of Pottawattamie County explains that “erecting the high school on the peak of a tall hill, accessible only by the steep High School Avenue, made getting to school a daily daunting proposition for students and faculty.” Andrew McMillen, a former student at the high school and a Daily Nonpareil writer in the 1920s, wrote on December 14, 1929 “the approaches on both the Glen avenue and the Willow avenue sides were so steep that it was necessary to have cleats on the walks in order to get up…after climbing up to the old school on the hill we then had to climb a flight of stairs to get to the school grounds and then climb three flights of stairs to get to the third floor.”
A July 26, 1936 Daily Nonpareil reported that the school’s “altitude was the cause of such strenuous hardship that it is recorded that ‘many [students] were forced to quit–too much high climbing’.” The hill was worthy enough to be mentioned in the 1897 senior annual class history with students stating they “wended [their] way up the hill and climbed the many stairs.” The tall hill was particularly good for one thing: sledding. Andrew McMillen recounts that in the winter, “the hill was a very popular place on account of the wonderful coasting. A sled load would start at the top of the hill and make the turn from High School avenue onto Willow avenue and then go as far as the Bloomer School.” McMillen also tattles on his former classmates by telling us “there were many cases where girls would bring excuses of their absence from school, saying climbing the hill was injurious to their health. Those same girls would make about twenty trips up the old hill in the evenings when coasting was good.”
The school on the hill also brought attention from outside of Council Bluffs. Newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis sarcastically reported that the school was “built upon a bluff 500 feet above the business streets.” A May 5, 1871 Daily Nonpareil article countered the misinformation, saying, in reality, it was closer to 100 feet. From 1881 to 1890, high school classes were held in the newly built Bloomer School on Seventh Street and Willow Avenue, partly due to the inaccessible nature of the school on the hill. Classes were temporarily resumed at the Council Bluffs High School from 1890 until a new high school was built in 1900 at Fifth Avenue and Bluff Street. The new building was later renamed to Abraham Lincoln High School when Thomas Jefferson High School was opened in 1921. The old Council Bluffs High School on the hill was demolished sometime around 1903. The hill was then regraded, lowered, and leveled to create an athletic field and open access to Fifth Avenue. The location was later renamed to Kirn Field in 1936, after Gerald W. Kirn, who pushed for the development of athletic facilities. In 1991, the field was acquired by the City of Council Bluffs and was integrated into the parks system as Kirn Park.
Sources:
Daily Nonpareil articles
“Kirn Field.” The Historical Society of Pottawattamie County. https://www.thehistoricalsociety.org/h/kirn-field.html
“Kirn Field of Council Bluffs Iowa - 1936.” YouTube, uploaded by Robert Svacina, 22 April 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5bNuNvQj64