Login
Login

Murphy High School (Alabama)

{{pp-pc1}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2024}}

{{Infobox school

| name = Murphy High School

| logo = File:Murphy High School.jpg

| system = Mobile County Public School System

| established = {{start date and age|1926|4|26|p=1}}

| type = Public high school

| motto =

| ceeb = 011830

| principal = Ed Sanderson

| teaching_staff = 76.00 (FTE)

| ratio = 16.51

| enrollment = 1,255 (2023–2024){{cite web|url=https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/schoolsearch/school_detail.asp?Search=1&DistrictID=0102370&SchoolPageNum=5&ID=010237000942|title=Murphy High School|publisher=National Center for Education Statistics|access-date=December 8, 2024}}

| grades =

| streetaddress = 100 South Carlen Street

| city = Mobile, Alabama

| zipcode = 36606

| country = United States

| coordinates = {{coord|30.68277|-88.08638|display=title,inline|format=dms}}

| campus_type = Urban

| colors = Blue and gold
{{color box|blue|border=silver}}{{color box|gold|border=silver}}

| mascot = Panther

| yearbook = Mohian

| newspaper = The Murphy Hi Times

| rival = McGill–Toolen Catholic High School

| website = {{URL|http://www.mhspanthers.com/}}

{{Infobox NRHP

| embed = yes

| name = Murphy High School

| nrhp_type =

| image =

| caption =

| built = 1926

| architect = Perkins, Fellows, and Hamilton;
Rogers, George B.

| architecture = Spanish Colonial Revival

| added = November 4, 1982

| area = {{convert|27.6|acre|1}}

| refnum = 82001612{{NRISref|version=2010a}}

}}

}}

Murphy High School, in Mobile, Alabama, is a public high school operated by the Mobile County Public School System that educates grades 9–12.

History

=Founding and Early History=

In 1922, the Mobile County Public School System (MCPSS) began to plan for the construction of a new high school that would serve the entire county, as the facilities of the now venerable 80 years old Barton Academy structure of Greek Revival architecture, in downtown, were becoming overcrowded and suffering from inadequate maintenance and difficult to maintain.{{cite web|title=Murphy High School|work=Public School Review LLC website|url=http://www.publicschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/928|access-date=December 8, 2007}} In 1923 the Mobile County School Board acquired {{convert|38|acre|1}} from the Carlen family for the site of their proposed high school complex.

The cornerstone of the school was laid on December 14, 1925, and on April 26, 1926, Mobile High School opened. Construction costs totaled $850,000 for the first six buildings with an additional $200,000 spent on the gymnasium and the indoor pool installed in 1930.{{cite web|title=School History |work=Murphy High School Alumni Association |url=http://www.murphyalumni.org/history.htm |access-date=March 11, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070331045900/http://www.murphyalumni.org/history.htm |archive-date=March 31, 2007 }} Two years after its opening the school's name was changed to Murphy High School in honor of Samuel Silenus Murphy, MCPSS superintendent from 1900 to 1926. While still called Mobile High School, the yearbook had been called the Mobile High Annual. At the change of the name to Murphy High School, the workers did not want to change the name of the yearbook. They agreed to shorten the name to Mohian, a shortened version of Mobile High Annual. The school's colors are gold and blue. Their mascot is a panther.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

=Desegregation=

The school was desegregated in 1963 when three African American students brought a case against the Mobile County School Board for being denied admission to the then all-white school.Thomason, Michael. Mobile : the new history of Alabama's first city, pages 260-261. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001. {{ISBN|0-8173-1065-7}} The court ordered that the three students be admitted to Murphy for the 1964 school year. By the fall of 1970, following stringent desegregation efforts in Alabama, 1,500 of the school's 2,140 students were African American. At the same time, the school had 34 African American teachers on its 87-member faculty.United States Department of Health Education and Welfare (DHEW) Office for Civil Rights, Directory of Public Secondary and Elementary Schools in Selected Districts: Fall 1970, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1972, p. 16.

=National Recognition=

In 1982 Murphy High School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1987 it was selected as a Presidential Model School by the U.S. Department of Education. Redbook magazine named Murphy as one of the top high schools in the United States and one of the largest high schools in Alabama in 1994. Murphy students were featured in the Seventeen magazine issue for November 1996 fashion trends in high school. Several students from the classes of 1997 and 1998 were included in the magazine.{{citation needed|date=May 2013}}

=Christmas Day Tornado=

On December 25, 2012, Murphy High School was hit directly by an EF2 wedge tornado, which caused significant damage to the campus. Students and faculty were relocated. They finished the remainder of the 2012 school year at the former Shaw High School in west Mobile while the Murphy campus was rebuilt. On August 19, 2013, the renovated storm-damaged high school campus reopened.{{Cite web|url=http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/local_news/mobile_county/mhs-damaged-more-than-meets-the-eye|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20130123192302/http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/local_news/mobile_county/mhs-damaged-more-than-meets-the-eye|url-status=dead|title=Superintendent: Murphy damaged 'more than meets the eye' | Fox10tv.com|archivedate=January 23, 2013}}

Academics

Murphy has 14 Advanced Placement courses, the International Baccalaureate program, and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

Notable alumni

{{alumni|date=November 2015}}

References

{{reflist}}

External links

{{Portal|United States|Schools}}

{{commons category|Murphy High School (Alabama)}}

  • [http://www.mhspanthers.com/ Murphy High School]
  • [http://www.murphyalumni.org/ Murphy High School Alumni Association]

{{Mobile County Public Schools}}

{{Alabama IB}}

{{AHSAA Class 7A}}

{{Mobile, Alabama}}

{{NRHP in Mobile, Alabama}}

{{National Register of Historic Places}}

{{authority control}}

Category:National Register of Historic Places in Mobile, Alabama

Category:High schools in Mobile, Alabama

Category:International Baccalaureate schools in Alabama

Category:Educational institutions established in 1926

Category:Public high schools in Alabama

Category:1926 establishments in Alabama