By 1869, the school system in Elgin was bursting at the seams.  According to the chairman of the Council's committee on schools, it was common for fifteen hundred students to attend school in a building designed for eight hundred.  Charles F. Kimball, Elgin's first educator, was recruited partly  to rectify this problem.  A church building was purchased in 1870 to serve as a new school and another small frame structure was established near by.  Elgin High School graduated its first class, three young ladies, in June 27, 1872.  Since that time, EHS can boast over  25,000 graduates.  

These new structures could not resolve the student overpopulation problem  for very long, for the second Elgin High School, shown above, was completed in April of 1884.  The new school could hold four hundred and fifty students and cost over $25,000 to build.  Proudly referred to as one of the finest building of the kind in the northwest, Elgin High School can boast five navy admirals, a Nobel prize winning chemist and a chief executive of General Motors among its alumni.