Colorado’s Oldest School Got Its Name Thanks to a Student’s Love of Poetry

Hundreds of thousands of young Coloradans attend elementary school every year, but not many can say the attend this oldest school in the state.

As a teacher/instructor at the school, it must be awe-inspiring to think that kids have been taught there for well over 100 years. As an elementary student, it may not hold the same "awe," but it must still be fun.

When a school is nearly 150 years old, and still education children, you have to wonder how it got its name.

Whittier International Elementary is Colorado's Oldest Running School

When the school first opened in 1883, its was the Pine Street School, as its address is 2008 Pine Street, in Boulder, Colorado. It was Boulder's second school, but that first one no longer exists.

RELATED: The Oldest Building Still Standing in Colorado

According to the Boulder Public Library and Carnegie Library for Local History, the school had 135 students inside four classrooms when it first opened. These 140+ years, later, the building is a Historical Landmark as being Colorado's continuously operating school.

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How Did Pine Street Elementary in Boulder, Colorado, Become Whittier Elementary?

It was in 1903 that they changed the name of the school to "Whittier," after a 6th grade student at the school had written a letter to the poet John Greenleaf Whittier in response to one of his poems; the poet wrote back, beginning a correspondence with the school.

The poem was "Snow-Bound, A Winter Idyl." The poem is about a family family in New England stuck inside their home for three days as a snowstorm happens outside. The family spends time telling stories by the fire.

It's a very long poem, which you can read here.