Stadium High School is a public high school in Tacoma, Washington and a historic landmark. It is part of Tacoma Public Schools, or Tacoma School District No. 10 and is located in the Stadium District, near downtown Tacoma. The original building burned to a shell in 1898 while it was still a partially constructed hotel designed by Hewitt & Hewitt that was being used for storage. It was reconstructed for use as a school beginning in 1906 according to designs by Frederick Heath, and a "bowl" stadium was added later in 1910.HistoryThe main building was constructed by architects Hewitt and Hewitt for the Northern Pacific Railroad Company and the Tacoma Land Company at what was then known as Blackwell Point. Construction began in 1891 with the intention of building a luxury hotel resembling a French château. The Panic of 1893, however, brought construction to an abrupt halt when the Northern Pacific was faced with financial disaster. The unfinished building became a storage facility, with much of the building materials still inside. On October 11, 1898, the building was gutted by a massive fire. The walls remained standing, and the Northern Pacific began to dismantle the structure, removing some 40,000 bricks that would be used to construct still-existing train stations in Missoula, Montana, and Wallace, Idaho.
