Historically St. Pete: The incredible history of St. Pete High, Florida’s first million dollar high school

In the early morning of August 31, 2012, St. Petersburg nearly lost one of its architectural treasures.

For nearly a century, St. Petersburg Senior High School has majestically stood at 2501 5th Avenue North, a symbol of the city’s 1920s affluence and prosperity, but at 4:00 a.m. that August morning, a fire swept through the auditorium attic. If not for the quick work of the St. Petersburg Fire Rescue, it would have spread throughout the historic main building.

School resumed days later, and over $1 million in damage was repaired in weeks.

But St. Pete High’s history runs deeper than the 5th Avenue campus. That site is not the first home of the Green Devils – it is the fourth.

Founded in 1898, the high school was part of the Graded School, near the current location of City Hall. As the city’s population grew, a one-building schoolhouse was not going to cut it.

In 1911, a new St. Petersburg High School was built across the street from City Hall, in the middle of what is now 2nd Avenue North.

It did not take long for the city to outgrow that neo-Classical structure. A bigger St. Pete High opened on Mirror Lake Drive in 1919.