Home to Cookeville High School from 1901 to 1914

In 1899, the Washington Academy school building was torn down and Cookeville Collegiate Institute was built.  Constructed in 1900, Cookeville Collegiate Institute was an eight room, two-story, frame building of Victorian design.  Later simply called the "City School," the building sat on a four-acre shady lot in downtown Cookeville at the present site of City Hall.  When it opened in 1901, it offered eight years of primary and four years of secondary education.  Teacher-training was later added to the curriculum.  

During the early 1900s, school attendance was not required.  In 1905, the Putnam County Herald reported that Putnam County received $4,694.30 from the state treasury for the education of the 7,222 children in the county.  However, school enrollment figures for the combined county and city schools showed that less than half of this number attended school.  

Although the building was only 21 years old, the "old City School" was torn down in 1922.

Photograph courtesy of the Cookeville History Museum