Demolition of Old Leigh High School Nears Completion
By: Natalie Brabec, a senior at Leigh High School
For generations, the stately brick building atop the hill on 310 Short Street has been a mainstay in the Leigh community. Built in 1907 with additions in 1925 and 1954, the old Leigh High School was a gathering place for countless sporting events, graduations, community events, and so much more.
The building served its purpose through the years and then some. The last class to graduate from that building was the class of 2020 on July 31, 2020. The last event that was ever hosted at the high school was Conference One-Act in November 2020 (even after no students were going to school there, the building was agreed upon by the Conference officials as a “safe” Covid space.) It has been calculated that 2,232 students graduated from that building over more than a century!
Once the new high school was built, everyone knew that there would come a time when the old high school would be torn down, as was promised when the bond for the new high school was passed.
This time came on January 24, 2022. Uhling and Jacob’s LLC out of Wisner, NE, hauled in all of their equipment to start demolition. They have been working on it little by little and have made great progress in a short amount of time. They expect the demolition phase to be done in the coming weeks.
The company plans to create a new housing development on the old high school site.
Leigh Alumni, and Leigh Superintendent, Cole Fischer, said, “While it was a very difficult decision to remove a part of LCS history, I think it shows progress toward the future. The plan to develop housing will hopefully attract more families to Leigh and continue to grow our community.”