The Sedalia High School, located at Sixth Street and Massachusetts Avenue, was built in 1895. The massive stone building cost $40,000 and served grades nine through 12. After Smith-Cotton High School was built in 1925, the building served as Martha Letts Junior High School. Though Sedalia was proud of its high school, the building lacked several facilities including shower rooms, a cafeteria and a library.
School officials justified the lack of a library by noting that students could use the facilities of the Sedalia Public Library. This assumption, while perhaps comforting school officials who had invested a great deal of money in a building the state would very shortly identify as dangerous and inadequate, was incorrect.
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