of what was originally known as Kent High School were held. This was preceded first by the formation of the Franklin Union School District around 1860, which brought four smaller schoolhouse districts under one administration in what was then known as Franklin Mills. In 1867, the school board decided to consolidate the various neighborhood schoolhouses and create a graded curriculum, which included separate high school classes. As part of the consolidation effort, construction of a new building, known as the Union School, began at the corner of Park Avenue and North Mantua Street on a hill overlooking the newly named village of Kent. Construction of the school was part of a number of building developments in Kent in the late 1860s, including two churches and a large bank building. The name of the settlement was changed from Franklin Mills to Kent in 1864 and the village was incorporated from part of Franklin Township in 1867 after population growth began in the mid-1860s followed the arrival of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad and its shops in 1863. The laying of the Union School's cornerstone on May 29, 1867, was hailed by the local newspaper, the Kent Bulletin, as an event "which is brighter than anything heretofore recorded in our favor." Because of construction delays, the building was not ready for classes in September 1868, so the first classes of the high school were held at the nearby Franklin Township Hall while students in grades 1–8 remained at their old schoolhouses. The new building opened on March 14, 1869 with the high school grades located in the southwest room of the second floor and the four primary grades on the first floor. The third floor of the building was an open, multi-purpose room. The school held its first graduation ceremony in July 1869 with a class of just one, a student named Anna Nutting. Nutting later taught at the Union School and eventually became its principal, serving until 1888. The Union School, which would later be known as Central School, served as the home of all Kent students until two additional elementary schools for grades 1–6 were constructed in the 1880s. For most of the 1910s, all of the school buildings were overcrowded and the high school graduating classes had grown to nearly 40 students. As a result, a new, separate high school building was built in 1922. The Union/Central building