NOW AND THEN: HOW OUR BUILDING HAS CHANGED
Byron VanEpps | Raider Staff
Every school building has a history, but few come close to the amount of history LCHS does. LCHS is the oldest school in Loudoun County, and, at the time of writing, has been around for sixty-six years. With that many years under its belt, the building is bound to have gone through lots of changes. Old classrooms and hallways being repurposed, new areas being created, and outside areas like the tennis court being built are among the building’s many changes over the years.
A photo from the 1965 edition of the Lord Loudoun yearbook shows that the front of the school has changed very little since the photo was taken fifty-five years ago.
OUR GROWING FOOTPRINT
Much has changed from when LCHS was first built; the surrounding land has been filled with houses and neighborhoods, and the school has expanded, adding parking lots and multiple new facilities like a tennis court and a bus garage, which later became the ROTC building, as shown in this 2019 view from Loudoun County government mapping:
This aerial view from 2006, shows one key difference from the 2019 photo: six small buildings in the parking lot. Before the renovation in 2005, these trailers were used as math and science classrooms:
Students gather in the front yard of the school to form the letters “LCHS” for an aerial photograph appearing in the 1965 yearbook. This photo was taken in 1956, just two years after the school was initially founded:
Everything has to start somewhere; for LCHS, that “somewhere” was a patch of rural land along Dry Mill Road in 1937 (from Loudoun County government mapping). Dry Mill Road still stands today as one of the oldest pieces of history in Loudoun County:
MIDDLE SCHOOL OR HIGH SCHOOL?
In this photo from the Lord Loudoun yearbook, four students sit at a table in the school’s library. These students were the officers and leaders of the eighth grade class that used to attend the high school. LCHS eventually discontinued the eight grade program, along with all other high schools in Loudoun County, and it became part of middle school. Before 2005, the library was located at the far left end of the main upstairs hallway, and began where room 230 is now. During the 2005 renovation, the library was moved and the area it was in was used as a space for new classrooms. You can see this change for yourself by looking for a line of tiles with diamonds on them that mark the beginning of the new classroom section:
FROM BASKETBALLS TO BOOKS
In these historic yearbook photos, LCHS basketball players get into formation and play basketball in the old gym. While this gym is very similar functionally, structurally, it is very different from the one we have today, and was transformed into something students know very well.
The old gym was also used for dances and some assemblies just like our current gym.
In 2005, the old gym underwent a massive renovation and was changed to the library we know today. This renovation cost near eighteen million dollars and was also responsible for the construction of a new gym, the math hallway near the science wing, and the walkway connecting one half of the second floor to the other. A piece of the old gym’s floor was saved during the renovation and was transformed into a table for the library by the woodshop class.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…
Not everything changes with time. The main front hallway is a prime example, being virtually unchanged since the school’s creation in 1954. Below: Members of the newspaper staff pose in the same hallway as students from a 1954 yearbook photo (right).
In this yearbook photo from the school’s early years, County students eat food in the then-cafeteria. Today, it has become the hallway that connects to the band and chorus rooms. The cafeteria we know was added in 1990 along with the science wing located directly above it:
