Bellevue School District history

In 1846, the Presbyterians built a school complete with classrooms and housing quarters for Omaha, Pawnee, and Otoe children.

They were educated here until the Omahas sold their land to the federal government in 1854 just before the Nebraska Territory was created.

Mission Middle school is located on this historical Mission Reserve, which was the largest part of the land included in the first plat of Bellevue that was approved by the Territorial Legislature in January 1856.

Mission Middle School - established 1869

The Bellevue Ranch was started by two California pioneers in the 1870’s.

For the first three months of the 1871-72 session, the Bellevue classes were scattered in various parts of the city in rented buildings.

The school, one of the first three built by the City, opened January 1, 1872, with twelve teachers.

The two men built Lake Yosemite in 1882.

Mitchell School was the first campus and was named in 1885.

In 1887 the cabin became the first school in the area.

In 1890 a new school was built on an acre of land.

In 1901 the closest school houses to Factoria were at Wilburton, Newcastle, and near Phantom Lake.

Elmer Murchie began working for Crocker-Huffman as a surveyor in 1909.

In the early 1950s, the school became known as Bellevue Junior/Senior High School and educated students grades 7-12. It was known as Bellevue School District #1 until 1911, when it was renamed Main School.

The building continued in use as an elementary school until the new Bellevue School opened in September 1914, at 2301 East Grace Street.

Tosh and Miss Albrecht, teachers at the Old Highland School in 1916, summoned their students to class by ringing the bell.

The company’s canal system was sold to the Merced Irrigation District when the District was formed in the mid-1920’s.

One of those early buildings is the Factoria School, built in 1929 on the side of the hillside overlooking what is now the I-90/ I-405 interchange.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s caused the Crocker-Huffman ranches to grow again.

Walter Stevenson may have rung it as well because he began teaching at the school in 1933.

Then in 1935 he and the bell were moved to a new brick Highland school that was built at 15027 NE Bel-Red Road.

Elmer Murchie became the general manager in 1940.

Anyone driving around the Bellevue area these days is familiar with the sight of new school buildings rising to completely replace those built not so very long ago, in the 1950’s and 60’s when the Eastside’s population was soaring.

Bellevue Elementary School opened in 1953 as the second campus of the Atwater Elementary School District.

In 1955, a third Highland School was built at 142nd Avenue and NE 8th in Bellevue.

In 1957 a larger school, Woodridge Elementary, opened, and little Factoria School was dedicated to special services personnel but still served as a polling place for two precincts.

In February 1962, when the new Bellevue Senior High school opened for grades 10-12, the school was again renamed to Bellevue Junior High School for grades 7-9.

Duane Menke, a 1963 graduate of Bellevue High, chose the name Two Springs for his new housing development.

When he retired in 1964, the Highland Elementary School was renamed Stevenson Elementary School.

When the second junior high was built in 1966, students that went to the new school and students remaining at Bellevue Junior High School helped name the two buildings by sending recommendations to the Bellevue Board of Education.

Interlake High School opened in 1968.

In 1997, Interlake began offering the International Baccalaureate program.

In 2003, most of the school was torn to the ground and rebuilt while its students continued to attend class in portables.

These new facilites opened in the Fall of 2012.

They will evaluate pilot data and recommend materials to adopt for implementation fall 2016.