St. Mary Central High School – SMC – Menasha, WI – Memories of the building / layout in the 1990’s.
Photo history unknown. St. Mary Central High School and Church.
Some buildings stay standing long after we leave them, waiting for us to come back and visit. This one doesn’t have that luxury. The St. Mary Central High School I walked through every day is gone now, demolished not long after my class filed out for the last time. So before the details fade any further, I want to walk these halls one more time—floor by floor, room by room—the way I remember them.
My experience at St. Mary Central High School holds a unique place in its history. In 1997, I was part of the graduating class that witnessed the end of an era—we were the last to walk the halls before the school on 2nd Street in Menasha was demolished. The closure marked the end of a long chapter for the property, leaving behind a legacy of educating young minds for many years.
While it was a bittersweet moment, it coincided with the exciting opening of a brand-new St. Mary Central High School in Neenah that same fall. It felt like witnessing the torch being passed, ensuring a continued legacy of education for future generations.
The main three-story building you can see in the photo above was the primary school building.
Walking onto the first floor from the 2nd Street entrance, the administrative offices were on the left. On the right, around the corner, was the main student office, which contained the copier and a mimeograph machine in a back room. There was also a room with a safe, an area for ill students to lie down, and the main office itself.
Continuing from the entrance, you walked into a center hallway, with the chapel on the left and a conference room on the right.
Moving further in, you reached a large open hallway. Taking a left led to the gym, while the right side had an exit and stairs leading up.
Continuing forward again, the band room was on the left, and rooms that were used for storage in the ’90s were on the right. At the end of this hallway were the back stairs connecting all three levels, which can be seen on the outside of the building on the 3rd Street side.
On the second floor, starting from the 2nd Street side, there was an English and speech classroom on the left, and the computer lab was on the right.
Moving down the hall, there was a homeroom on the left and another computer classroom on the right, which I recall also hosted a business class of some sort.
Continuing to the final section, past the stairs, the library was on the left, which also housed the Macintosh computers in the ’90s. On the right was an English and homeroom classroom. At the very end of the hall was another homeroom on the right and the foreign language room on the left.
On the third floor, starting from the 2nd Street side, the art room was on the left and the science lab was on the right.
Heading forward into the center section, we had the clay room on the left. The right side was either storage or a classroom that I don’t recall being used very often.
Continuing forward, back into the stairwell, there were stairs leading to the roof that I never managed to see for myself.
Moving forward once again into the last section, the chemistry room was on the left, followed by the chemistry lab, also on the left, at the end of the hallway.
To the right, we had a math room, and the space at the end of the hall was mostly used as a study hall, as I recall.
Regarding the photo below: The building on the right was used exclusively for the grade school as far as I was aware, along with the lower floor of the building on the left.
The second floor of the building on the left was designated for the high school. Starting from the 2nd Street side, we had a study hall on the left, a religion classroom toward the center, followed by a math classroom at the end. On the right was social studies, then a room used for teaching driver’s ed and perhaps some other classes that I don’t recall clearly—maybe something related to physical fitness.
The restrooms were on the right just past that last classroom, followed by the counselor’s office.
Looking at this lower picture, toward the top left of the photo was the gymnasium and stage, with the cafeteria down in the basement. The back of the cafeteria housed a storage room filled with various items, including props and gear for theater productions. The basement also contained the gym locker rooms, which were situated more underneath the main school building than the actual gym.
The gym and stage area was used for assemblies, theater productions, and other events. I helped put on and even acted in several plays there. We had an old piece of scaffolding that I would have to climb to rig the stage lights. During my time there, I was usually the one tasked with getting out the microphone and adjusting the audio levels for events. There was also a room on the right side equipped with a spotlight, which we used for performances or when recording videos of events and plays.
Toward the back side of the gym, there was a kitchen and soda machine area used during events.
Image dated 1985; Credit Wisconsin Historical Society.
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI59140
Aerial View of St. Mary Central High School. Author of photo unknown.
These photos are thought to be public domain and/or fair use under copyright law, as they are being used for educational and commentary purposes. If you claim ownership of any of the images above, please contact jamiedolan at gmail.com.
https://case.edu/library/research/digital-scholarship-cwru/copyright/fair-use-exception-copyright
A few photos I scanned in
Update: I recently came across a few physical photographs from my years at St. Mary Central and was able to scan them in. They show the outdoor entrance to the gymnasium on the Third Street side, the gym decorated for an event, the stage area, and friends gathered there. As I uncover any additional photos, I will add them to this page.
A Warner Cable listing from 1989
While sorting my lifelong photo collection, I came across a screenshot I grabbed many years ago from an old VHS recording that had been digitized. It’s from 1989, four years before I started at SMC. I had almost forgotten about those old TV channel banner ads.
