The start of the 2008–2009 school year year is perhaps an appropriate time to begin looking at some aspects of the past of the Bradley schools.
Below are three photos of the original Bradley High School Building, which was built in 1915 and demolished in 1956. It was a three-story building, but the main floor was actually a half-story above the ground. The bottom floor was a semi-basement. I can remember my grandfather telling about the frequent problems that arose with water either seeping into that semi-basement or even coming into it from actual flooding.
This building was located approximately where the Bradley High School gym is now, although it did not extend as far out toward Highway 160. The northwest corner of this building and of the current gym would have been in roughly the same place. Its front faced the highway (east) side.
The first photo shows the front view of the building when vegetation was allowed to grow up its walls, and there was a shrub-lined walkway out to the highway.
The next photo was taken from the northeast angle of the building, without vegetation:
The final photo was taken from the southeast angle of the building, obviously in the afternoon. Just out of the photo in the lower right corner was a small, shallow fish pond. In the lower left of this photo can be seen a merry-go-round and the building on the diagonally opposite corner of the campus which was used for many decades as a lunchroom/home economics building.
bradleyark.com 