|Littleton's first schoolhouse built in 1865 by John Bell for $65. Date unknown.|
When the Pikes Peakers began flooding into the South Platte valley in 1859, they did not leave civilization behind in the East. Nor did they leave their families. Housed in a leaky log cabin in Denver City, Colorado's first school was opened by O.J. Goldrick in October 1859 for fifteen students at a tuition of $3.00 each per month. This Denver Union School was joined in 1860 by second school in Boulder and others in Denver. All the schools were privately owned and operated, as no provision was made for government support until 1862, when School Districts #1 and #2 were established in east and west Denver, respectively.
|Littleton's first schoolhouse, now sits on the Littleton Historical Museum grounds.|
Settlers in the area that would become Littleton began classes in 1864, and informally perhaps as early as 1860 in the home of Isaac McBroom. In 1864, however, a number of settlers met at Richard Little's cabin to organize what would become School District #6, also known as the Littleton School District. The boundaries extended from the Denver city limits in the north to the Arapahoe/Douglas County line in the south, from Sheridan Boulevard in the west to the Kansas border in the east. L.B. Ames was elected president, R.T. Hussy, secretary and R.S. Little, treasurer. For one year, classes met in Little's cabin.
|Rapp Street School, c.1911.|
In 1865, Harry Pickard donated land for a schoolhouse, and at a cost of $65 a one-room log structure was built by John Bell on present-day Union Avenue just east of the South Platte River, about a mile and a half north of downtown Littleton. The building measured about 16 feet by 17 feet with a single-slope lumber roof covered with sod. The interior was furnished with rough tables and long benches made of pine for the students, a small desk and chair for the teacher and was heated by a box stove. The first teacher was L.B. Ames, who was paid $40 per month during 1866-1867 to teach fifteen pupils. The following year his wife was paid $50 and had but three students. The reason for the drop in enrollment was that Littleton's first frame schoolhouse had opened on the Lilley ranch on the west side of the South Platte River.
|Broadway School, c.1903.|
Littleton's first brick school was opened in 1873 at Rapp and Church Streets on land donated by Richard Little. Enrollment soon reached seventy students. There followed a two-story addition to the "Rapp Street School" in 1883, and finally another expansion replacing the original one-story building in 1904. This school served grades one through twelve until 1920, when the secondary grades moved to Grant School, and then continued as a grade school until torn down in 1953. In 1889, Littleton School District #6 was formally incorporated.
In 1894, a second school was built at the intersection of Broadway and Littleton Boulevard. The "Broadway School" was meant to serve families in the eastern part of the county for whom the Rapp School was too distant. School District enrollment in the 1890s reached 222, although average daily attendance was only 153. The faculty climbed from one to three in 1883 with the expansion of the Rapp School and rose to eight "first-class instructors" when the Broadway School opened. The Grant Street High School was completed in 1920, at a cost of $100,000. This, in turn, was replaced by the current Littleton High School in 1956, and in 1985 the Grant Street School became the District's Education Services Center.
|Old Littleton High School, later Grant Jr. High. Date unknown.|
Today, Littleton School District #6 (Littleton Public Schools) includes thirteen elementary schools, four middle schools, three high schools, two charter schools, The Village Preschool, and two alternative programs. The original one-room log schoolhouse still stands. When the Rapp Street School opened in 1873, the log school ceased regular operation. Sometime before 1900 it was moved to the Sam Brown ranch west of the river. In 1951, it was donated to the city and moved to Rio Grande Park (Bega Park). Finally in 1972 it was moved to its current location at the Littleton Historical Museum, where it is again used to teach visitors the three R's, 1865-style.
A $298 million bond measure was approved by voters in November, 2018 and will improve a number of the district's buildings. Several elementary schools will be rebuilt or retooled, a new stadium will be built at Newton Middle School and the district will develop a career and technical education center where students can learn vocational skills.
McQuarie, Robert J. and C.W. Buchholtz. Littleton, Colorado: Settlement to Centennial. Littleton: Littleton Historical Museum and Friends of the Library and Museum, 1990.