The Ponce High School is public educational institution in Ponce, Puerto Rico, offering grades nine through twelve. The school's main building is a historic structure located on Cristina Street, in the Ponce Historic Zone. From its beginning the school has secured a unique place in Puerto Rico's educational history. Of over 3,000 schools erected in Puerto Rico in the first quarter of the twentieth century, Ponce High was the largest, "at a time enrolling more students than all the other Puerto Rico high schools combined", and for many years enrolling more students than any other high school in Puerto Rico. The cost of the building in 1915 dollars was $150,000 USD. The building was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on 4 August 1987. The school has the only diamond-level DECA chapter in Puerto Rico. The Ponce High School building is "among the most important public buildings ever built in Puerto Rico." The school is the oldest continuously-operating high school in Puerto Rico.
Partial front facade view of Ponce High School in Ponce, Puerto Rico
The Ponce Historic Zone is a historic district in downtown Ponce, Puerto Rico, consisting of buildings, plazas and structures with distinctive architectures such as Neoclásico Isabelino and the Ponce Creole, a local architectural style developed between the 19th- and early 20th-centuries. The zone goes by various names, including Traditional Ponce, Central Ponce, Historic Ponce, and Ponce Historic District.
Parque de Bombas, the iconic symbol of the Historic Zone
The 1912 Casa Wiechers-Villaronga, housing the Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña
Casa Paoli, the childhood home of opera star Antonio Paoli
Cathedral Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe was rebuilt in more splendor after the 1918 San Fermín earthquake