What Remains of Ferguson High School?

Ferguson High School letter at the Ferguson Center, 2022

Does Ferguson High School still exist? Was it all demolished? Well, I am here to report that the school building does still exist in parts. While somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the building was demolished, the rest of it remains. These sections have been renovated, painted over, walled up, but you can still find evidence of the high school at the Center. Join along with me on a photo tour in and around the grounds of Ferguson.

So first, below are aerial layouts of Ferguson High School and the Ferguson Center. In both maps, the black section is the part of the school building that is still extant. In the first map, the blue shaded sections are the sections of the school building that have since been demolished. In the second map, the red sections are the Ferguson Center additions added 2002-2005.

Ferguson High School aerial layout

Ferguson Center aerial layout

Gone is half of the 2-story front façade, the auditorium, the tech-ed and music classrooms, the 2-story annex building, one of the courtyards, one of the smaller gyms, and all of the support rooms that surrounded the main gym. Remaining in renovated forms, we have the library, the cafeteria, one of the courtyards, and three of the four gyms.

We start our tour first along the outside. On three sides of the building, all you can see is the colonnade and the Ferguson Center's additions. However, the high school becomes apparent towards the backside of the building. Much is hidden from direct view by earthen berms, plants, and the parking deck, but if you're able to navigate around it all, you can still find identifiable high school features.

Looking at Ferguson Center/High from Avenue of the Arts

Two high school gyms

Disused gym doors, no longer an exit.

View from the parking deck. 2nd largest gym is center of picture,
while smallest remaining gym is behind trees and an earthen berm. 

From the parking deck, you can see over the back hallways
and former gyms to the 2-story front section of Ferguson.

Where the Concert Hall meets the High School.

In the shadow of the Peebles Theatre is
the former cafeteria kitchen

Back door of the kitchen/cafeteria

Circling around to the front of the building, we have an alley. While it is now between the Center's classroom section and Peebles/Studio Theatres, it was formerly between the main gym complex and the rest of the school. There were covered walkways here when it was a school, but they have since been removed for the performing arts center.

Alley between Studio Theater and classroom section

In-between the main gym (left) and windows into the
cafeteria (right), which now looks into a dance studio.

Corner of the former Main Gym.
A new interior hallway connects it to the rest of the building.

The school's iconic glass block windows still exist in many places. The clear windows underneath the blocks have been replaced with newer windows, however.

Ferguson glass block windows

Close-up look at the glass block windows and grout

Before we go inside, let's take two detours away from the building.

Our first stop is at Captain's Park, CNU's baseball field. According to one former CNU architect I spoke to, part of this field came from Ferguson's! Before it was demolished to make way for the Avenue of the Arts, the Ferguson baseball diamond’s top soil was picked up, transported, and placed onto this field while it was under construction! A creative way of saving money and indirectly preserving a baseball field!

CNU Baseball Field, Captain's Park

Our final exterior detour is in closer proximity to the center. Say hello to an odd remainder of Ferguson's eastern parking lot. Sticking out of the grass is what I believe to be the bottom of a high school era lamppost. Why it is still here is head-scratching. I'm sure the campus landscaping team loves to run into it when they mow here.

Remaining bottom of a lamppost to the east of the Ferguson

Let's go inside now. We'll start in the modern-day classroom wing. 

Believe it or not, the interior entryway for this section was formerly the western entrance to the high school along the 2-story front classroom section. Although reskinned, you can tell by the former window and door openings, as well as the staircase setup.

Ferguson Classroom Entrance, 2022

Ferguson High School. Front corner entrance highlighted in orange.
Photo from 1963 Ferguson High Mariner yearbook 
Courtesy of Newport News Public Library

Looking towards the entry, in view of the divided stairs

Students on a divided staircase
Photo from 1964 Ferguson High Mariner yearbook 
Courtesy of Newport News Public Library

On the mid landing, where the divided stairs join and turn up to the second floor

There are various hallways that are original to the high school. The ceiling has been lowered, and drywall has hidden the original walls/lockers, but the floor is unmistakably from its school days. 

Terazzo floor close-up

The depth of the drywall covering the original
walls makes each doorway seem cave-like.

You can even still hear the lockers behind the walls!:

Next, we visit a men's bathroom. 

While a lot has changed, it still features wall tile from the school (just painted over). It also has a low walled-off portion which the urinals are coming out of. Original blueprints indicate the area that's being covered was where the high school's urinals went. While some might find this odd or a missed cost-saving opportunity, I beg to differ. Gentlemen, unless it was renovated prior to 1996, this was an old-school bathroom. It had 8 urinals crammed along that wall, side-by-side. No privacy dividers. Whoever renovated this bathroom at the turn of the century understood no one would enjoy using those. 

Another view of the men's bathroom
According to blueprints, the shelf along the back wall is also an original feature

We are not visiting the ladies' room on this trip, but I have been told there are similar remnants of the school in there as well.

Let's swing by the classrooms now...

(Photos here are from a sampling of classrooms from the front wing's second floor)

The doors are definitely new, but the doorframes are original. Below, we have a door with a blacked-out window.

Ferguson Center doorframe

A Warwick Junior doorframe and window in orange outline
Photo from 1961 Warwick Junior High Cavalier yearbook
Courtesy of Newport News Public Library

On this door frame, we have some paint chipping
away to reveal previous paint colors

There are also closets remaining in some rooms--

Ferguson Center Classroom. Closet on left

A similar closet in orange outline
Photo from 1961 Warwick Junior High Cavalier yearbook
Courtesy of Newport News Public Library

The specialty spaces range in various levels of recognizability. Let's stop by....

The Main Gym has been sub-divided between a couple large spaces, including the Studio Theater, the Theater Rehearsal Hall, the Production Shop, and the Light Lab.

Studio Theater

Down an adjacent hallway from the Studio Theater,
an opening in the ceiling tiles reveals Mariner blue paint.

For many years, the second-largest gym was crudely divided between a music rehearsal hall and furniture storage for TheaterCNU. During the Ferguson's 2021 renovation, it was fully given over to being a music rehearsal space.

Music Rehearsal Hall, 2010

Music Rehearsal Hall, 2021

The smallest gym is also now a music rehearsal hall. Previously, this had been the location of Ferguson Hall's Shoebox Theatre, which then was closed off from public access 2003-2021.

Another Gym-to-Music-Rehearsal-Hall

The cafeteria and kitchen areas are composed of the dance studio, the theater library, theater prop storage, costume classroom and storage, and dressing rooms. A couple art classrooms, a photography darkroom, and the Falk Gallery also used to be here until the Torggler Center opened. As such, these latter areas are still being renovated into their future Ferguson use.

Hallway into former cafeteria area

Former Ferguson cafeteria expansion space under renovation (Early 2022)
Unpainted Ferguson wall and floor tile present.

Painted-over tiling in the cafeteria expansion section

The library is now music classrooms and music practice rooms

Hallway of music practice rooms

Then there is, of course, the remaining courtyard that was transformed into the Arts Garden, one of the best spots at CNU.

The George J. Hillow III Arts Garden

Alright, but what about the clock tower? As has been established, the clock tower designated the two areas of the Center's phased construction. Everything to the left of it was demolished for the Concert Hall, while mostly everything to the right of it was renovated. But what of the clock tower itself?

It's still (mostly) there!

Part of the clock tower structure still exists. It was cut down, but if you look at aerial imagery or from the Ferguson Parking Deck, you can still spot it! (If it had not been cut down, the clock tower would be peeking out from behind the center's colonnade.)

Aerial of Ferguson Center
Orange box around former high school entrance
Map data: Google Earth.

Back of the Ferguson Center from the parking deck.
Orange box around the remaining section of the clock tower.

In this section of the building, the front staircase that was housed inside the clock tower is still present! 

Then/Now photo, featuring main stairs in 1960 (left) and modern day (right).
"Then" photo from Warwick Junior High's 1960 Cavalier yearbook,
Courtesy of Newport News Public Library

At the top of the staircase, looking down. 
The Ferguson Memorial Mural (based off the 1982
Mariner yearbook cover) is displayed above it.

Based on the position of the stairs in relation to the current structure, I can deduce that the main entrance to Ferguson is now where the Diamonstein Concert Hall ticket windows are located. 

The Concert Hall's ticket windows. To the right is a new
door in which you can view the original front staircase. 
The door to the left leads into the donor lounges.

So the donor lounges are converted areas that were formerly the front vestibule and the hallway leading away from it. Does it seem uncharacteristic of CNU that the Ferguson Center's donor lounges have low ceilings and tight square footages? That is why. It is still in the old part of the building. 

One of the donor lounges, the former school vestibule.
Curtained door from previous picture to the right.
The ticket office wall is behind the yellow couch.

Second donor lounge, formerly a hallway.
The school's main office would have been to the right.

You can very much see the line between old school and the newer construction in the above lounge.

Same photo as previous, but with the "line" outlined in orange on left.

There is even a weird crossroads between the two donor lounges. This is the school intersection, where the front section's hallway intersected with the vestibule and its hallway.

Crossroad between donor lounges.
Behind the door to the left is the red floor lounge.
Past the painting and to the right is the green floor lounge.
The open door leads into the concert hall lobby.
(Again, spot the line between old and new construction.)
Behind the camera are doors into the classroom wing hallway.

These spaces and choices never made sense to me until I understood the high school's layout and how that compared to the current building's.

The main office and guidance counselor areas have been thoroughly converted into concert hall dressing rooms and other support spaces. Not even the floor has the school's terrazzo.

Photo in the dressing room hallway maze

Last but not least on this tour, I want to end by showing you my favorite former Ferguson High School remnant. Behind a nondescript door by the classroom section's entrance is a narrow courtyard between the classrooms and the colonnade. Here we have a section of the front of the school, still present!!

Ferguson High School hiding behind the Ferguson Center

Ferguson High School. Extant part of front façade highlighted in orange.
Photo from 1963 Ferguson High Mariner yearbook 
Courtesy Newport News Public Library.

There is a bench, a pebble path, creeping ivy, and a bamboo plant at the far end. It's a quiet, contemplative space.

Former vent openings have been covered over by new bricking. There are also vestiges of school days left in place.

Loudspeaker

School bell?

Another view looking down the courtyard,
In the distance, the concert hall peeks out from above.

As we finish the walking" portion of our tour, I also want to feature other school remnants:

IN PRINT

Main Street Library's Virginiana Room in Hilton Village has a complete collection of Warwick Junior High School yearbooks, and a majority of Ferguson High School's yearbooks and Windjammer newspapers. You can visit the yearbooks in person, or check them out in their Online Yearbook Archives!

Ferguson High School yearbooks shelved at the Virginiana Room

If you have any of the following Ferguson High School Mariner yearbooks you are willing to part with, consider donating them to the Virginiana Room so they can have a complete collection of yearbooks available to all:

1974

1983

1985

1986

1987

1989

(Before donating a yearbook, please reach out to the Virginiana Room first to make sure they haven't already received a copy from another individual. You can reach them via phone at 757-591-4858)

A sketch of Ferguson High School also appears in the 2013 book "Times & Places: A Glimpse of Life on the Virginia Peninsula" by Allan C. Hanrahan. The same sketch is pictured twice, on page 4 and page 22.

ON VIDEO

While the World Wide Web was in its very early years when Ferguson closed, some school memories have since been uploaded onto it!

FergusonHighBand1963

Here we have a video of the Ferguson band performing outside at the Mariners' Museum. This video is mostly silent, but there are sometimes bits of unrelated audio accompanying it.

FergusonHighGrad1965

Here is the 1965 graduation at Ferguson High School! Not many graduations took place on the front lawn of the school, so it's exciting to find footage of one of them. Like the previous video, this is mostly silent with unrelated audio sometimes playing.

Ferguson High School 1970 Mariner Band

Apparently in 1970, the Mariner and Cadet Bands made an LP! And then alumnus David Burns digitally recorded the music and posted it onto YouTube. Thank you David! 

(This video is still available, you just have to follow the link and watch it on YouTube)

H.L. Ferguson H.S. Band - 1986 Apple Blossom Festival Grand Feature Parade

Ferguson Marching Band appearing in Winchester, VA's 1986 Apple Blossom Festival Parade

David Clark High School Basketball highlights Newport News Virginia 1993-1995

Features Ferguson men's basketball at Warwick High School and (starting 1:45) the Ferguson High Main Gym.

Locker 12

Caution: there are elements of jump scares present in this video.

The only video foray into the abandoned Ferguson, this appears to have been a student project horror film trailer. This takes place by one of the smaller gyms, along with its shower and locker room spaces. 

There is also a lot of Ferguson football content available:

https://youtu.be/_qE_JJ0ZLPA (vs Hampton, mid-1960's, no sound)

https://youtu.be/KkLStwZ7nug (vs Hampton, 1970, no sound)

https://youtu.be/TvnRnhuSmUk (vs Hampton, 1983, no sound)

https://youtu.be/8jnZJrhWV4A (a WHOLE 2 hour game, vs Bethel, 1988, full sound and commentary, and Ferguson wins!)

TOGETHER

It can always be argued that high school is not just a place, but a collective community of our friends and schoolmates! If you are on Facebook, there are two groups on there where alumni can connect: Homer L Ferguson High School Alumni and Ferguson & Woodside High Schools Thespian Troupe 1629 Alumni -- NN, VA.

Thanks for joining me on this tour on rediscovering what remains of Ferguson High School. I hope it has given alumni a little happiness or peace knowing your school is in part still around.

Companion Articles

The History of the Ferguson

Ferguson: The Cuts, the Extras, and MORE!

Related Article

What Remains of Christopher Newport College?

Sources Used

Warwick Junior High School blueprints

Ferguson Center for the Arts blueprints

Google Earth

Warwick Junior High Cavalier and Ferguson High Mariner yearbooks

Ferguson High School Acquisition Report, November 1, 1990

Linwood Gardner interview, 2014