Lemont High School

An old surviving document shows graduates in 1891, although Lemont High School was not officially formed until 1906, when five students (four girls and one boy) began meeting for class in the school building located at 410 McCarthy Road. The high school leased three rooms in the building at a rate of $500 per year. The original building is now used for condominiums, but the Central Elementary school is still connected to the East end of the building.[5]

By 1925, after many failed attempts, an 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m²) building was finally constructed at 800 Porter Street, where the school is located to this day. The original building cost $125,000 to build and included eight classrooms, a library, a science lab, a home economics room, and a gymnasium.[5]

Student enrollment almost doubled during the 1950s, which in turn led to three expansionary construction projects. Among the new additions were an 11,500-square-foot (1,070 m²) gymnasium (completed in 1950), and 38,000 square feet (3,500 m²) worth of classroom additions (completed by 1959). By the end of the decade, the school was equipped with wood, metal, industrial arts, and electrical shops.[5]

After occupying 6.5 acres (26,000 m²) since the late 1920s, Lemont High School expanded to 29 acres (120,000 m²) by 1967, with a significant portion of that land being used for athletic facilities. A $1.1 million project was completed in 1971, which added a new auditorium, kitchen, locker rooms, and more. On June 13, 1976, the school suffered nearly $500,000 in tornado damages. Shortly thereafter, the community passed a bond to rebuild.[5]

The student population at LHS began to climb in the 1990s, which resulted in yet another expansion in 1997. The $24.5 million project added a three-story classroom addition and a fieldhouse, essentially doubling the building’s square footage to 300,000. A unique parking facility was also built as part of the expansion to help ease severe parking problems for students and staff.[5]

Also in the late 1990s, filming took place at Lemont High School for the movie Save the Last Dance. The school was depicted as the main character's Midwestern high school. Portions of the front of the high school were shown during the beginning of the movie along with the main staircase inside the school. Other areas throughout the town were also shown in the movie.[5]

Lemont High School’s facilities expanded off campus in 2003 with the completion of the Lemont High School Athletic Complex, located at 131st Street and Bell Road. The 26-acre (110,000 m²) facility serves as home to the school’s baseball, soccer, and softball teams.[5]

The stage of the Performing Arts Center

With student enrollment continuing to grow each year, Lemont High School has undergone further expansion recently. In 2005, the community passed a $29.6 million referendum allowing the school to start an expansion which included a new and improved auditorium, approximately 30 new classrooms, a new wood shop, a turf football field with improved lighting and expanded audience seating, an expanded cafeteria area, additional parking, safety upgrades, and much more. Construction started in early 2006. The new addition of 30 classrooms as well as the football stadium enhancements were completed before the start of the 2007 school year. Construction on the new auditorium (now called the Performing Arts Center) was completed in March 2008. Other areas of the school, mainly parking lots and roads, were completed in the summer months of 2008.

The expansion included features that would benefit every Lemont High School student:

• A new 67,500-square-foot (6,270 m²) classroom addition—which was built next to the school and "connected" with the existing structure in the summer of 2007—added more than 25 classrooms, computer and science labs, and other amenities. The new classroom addition opened at the start of the 2007-08 school year, and provides the school with space to accommodate up to 2,100 students.
• The football stadium—which also serves as home for the track and field programs—underwent an extensive renovation. This included a regrading of the playing surface and the installation of synthetic turf, as well as the addition of seating for more than 2,000 fans, a new pressbox, a new concession stand, and new lights. The stadium debuted in August 2007.
• A stand-alone building—the Woods Technology Learning Center—was constructed to greatly expand the classrooms, work space, and resources for the school's industrial technology department.
• The school's old auditorium was demolished, and in its place, the new Performing Arts Center was built. The Performing Arts Center—home to the drama, music, and forensics departments—opened in March 2008 and includes seating for nearly 850, a fly tower that is utilized for storage, state-of-the-art sound and lighting, and an orchestra pit.

Currently, the 360,000-square-foot (33,000 m²) school covers 30 acres (120,000 m²) of land. It continues to stand where it was originally built in 1925.[5] The 2006 construction project, which lasted nearly two years, was named the K-12 Education "Project of the Year" in Midwest Construction magazine's "Best of 2008" competition[9]

The Academic Departments at Lemont High School are:

• Career & Technical Education
• English
• Fine Arts
• Foreign Language
• Mathematics
• Physical Education, Health & Driver Education
• Science
• Social Studies
• Special Education

Lemont High School's teams had been known as the Indians until the mid-1960s, when an athletic director christened the school with the name Injuns to distinguish it from the many others using Native American names as their team name.[16] However, many viewed the name Injuns as a racial slur. In the early 2000s, the Illinois Native American Bar Association notified the high school of its disapproval of the Injuns name. By August 2004, the District 210 board voted to choose a new mascot with community input.[17]

In February 2005, a school and community vote narrowly favored the name Titans over the Engines, a near homophone of the outgoing mascot name.[18] However, the Titans name was never officially adopted. Local elections later in 2005 brought in new school board members who fulfilled their promise to restore the school's original Indians mascot name. The school went without a nickname for the 2005-2006 school year, allowing time for a transition of logos and uniforms. Lemont officially returned to the Indians name beginning with the 2006-2007 school year.[16] The school board voted unanimously in July 2021 to phase out the Indians mascot.[7]