El Reno High School

El Reno High School is the only high school in El Reno, Oklahoma.

History

El Reno High School, located at 405 South Choctaw in El Reno, Oklahoma, is a two and one-half story horizontally massed, detached building (two stories over raised basement). Measuring 175 feet east-west and 132 feet north-south, the building is oriented in an east-west direction, with the main (1911) entrance facing west on South Choctaw. The school is located in a mixed-use area, with residential areas to the west and southwest, and commercial areas to the north and east. The El Reno High School building was constructed in two phases. The west half, or El Reno High School proper, constructed in 1911, was designed by the Oklahoma City firm of Layton and Smith, Oklahoma's premier architects and designers of the Oklahoma State Capitol Building as well as many public schools. The east half, originally built for junior high school classes, was designed by an unknown architect and was constructed in 1925-1926. In style, the El Reno High School building incorporates many of the elements of Late Gothic Revival as applied to public buildings around the turn of the twentieth century. In some quarters this stylistic variation was known as "Collegiate Gothic." The major feature of this building, include: flat roof with raised, shaped, and/or castellated parapet; towers with long, narrow "princess" windows; pinnacles rising from parapets or towers; and polychrome surfaces, or contrasting brick and stone work, with stone work forming copings, window and door hoods, arches, horizontal bands or water tables, and quoins. In general the two defining characteristics of the building were the decorative stonework and, before alteration, the windows. Bedford Indiana limestone creates hood moldings that accentuate the openings and bands that emphasize the horizontal massing.