Lehi Central School

Lehi’s Central School, erected in 1892 on Center Street near Sixth North, is one of those vanished landmarks whose story still echoes through local memory and historical records. Its birth was prompted by a pressing need: by the early 1890s the existing schoolhouses were bursting at the seams, especially with an influx of families tied to the local sugar factory and other industries. To address overcrowding, the city authorized a bond (half funded by local tax levies and half by the school district) to build a more capacious and dignified structure. 

The school was designed by Richard K. Kletting—who would later be famed for designing the Utah State Capitol—and stood on the former site of one of Lehi’s old molasses mills, giving the location a layered past even before the classrooms were built. From its inception, Central School was more than a small elementary building: in 1898 four more rooms were added to bring in 8th and 9th grade students, and over the following decades it steadily expanded upward through the high school grades. By 1908 it housed students all the way through 12th grade. 

For some years it served as Lehi’s first high school, until newer school buildings were erected. Once a dedicated grammar school was completed in 1910 and younger students moved out, the Central building became fully a high school until around 1921 when a newer facility on the southeast corner of Center and 200 North replaced it. After that, the LDS Second Ward congregation used the building while their meetinghouse (the Tabernacle) was in flux—between about 1921 and 1928. 

One of the more evocative traditions tied to Central School was its bell, which for forty years rang in the belfry every morning—first at 8:30 and again at 9:00—to summon students. The sound of that bell was said to be audible across much of Lehi, and local clocks were often synchronized to it.  When demolition finally came in 1933, a local citizen, Blanche Larsen, rescued the bell and donated it to the Hutchings Museum so that its sound might still live on in memory. 

Though the building no longer walks the streets of Lehi, its legacy endures in many ways—through its role in shaping the city’s educational system, through the students who passed through its halls, and through the stories and artifacts (like the bell) preserved in local memory. If you like, I can try to uncover architectural blueprints, photos of the interior, or personal recollections from people who attended school there.