Description: The Joint High School completed in Berwyn in 1908 was the first consolidated high school in Pennsylvania. The structure was locally referred to as the 1908 building and officially as the Tredyffrin-Easttown High School. The school was located on the southwest corner of Howellville and Conestoga Roads, so with Howellville Road bisecting the image, photographer Lucy Sampson was shooting directly west towards the school’s front. This architectural shot of the new school, with no schoolchildren or others in view, is believed to have been taken in the spring of 1908 - several months before the start of its first academic year. One of the dominant features of the school were its four massive chimneys, two on either side, and each containing multiple individual flues. Each room had its own coal-fired stove to generate heat in the winter, and hence all of those flues coming up all through the building. Another notable feature of the new school was a large gymnasium in the basement. The structure was razed in 1970 and it currently the location of the Tredyffrin-Easttown Middle School. - Herb Fry and Roger Thorne
