Status: Preserved
Address: 306 South Bellevue Boulevard, Memphis
Built: 1911; additions in 1948 and 1967
Architectural Style: Jacobean Revival
Original Function/Purpose: Education
History: Central is the successor of Memphis High School, the first high school in Memphis, founded in 1897. Designed by B.C. Alsup, Central opened in 1911 as part of Memphis’s plan to locate schools in various locations around the city. The new school was briefly put to a much different use in the fall of 1918, when the Red Cross turned it into a temporary hospital for cases of the Spanish flu. In the fall of 1968, Central expanded into a new addition thanks to a fundraising campaign spearheaded by Hugh F. Carey. It has undergone numerous renovations since then, most recently in 2006 with a $21 million project. In 1982 the Memphis Board of Education nominated a dozen Memphis public schools to the National Register in a Multiple Property Listing of schools constructed between 1902 and 1915. Of the seven that were accepted, Central High School and Peabody and Rozelle Elementary Schools are the only three that remain in use today; they remain on the NR.
City Council District: 6
Super District: 8
County Commission District: 8