Danville High School began with the most humble of origins in a spare room over the Yeomans, Shedd, & LeSeure Hardware Store at 65 E. Main in September, 1870. There is some question whether it actually began as a public school as we know it today. Danville High School was at first founded without the help of the community and soon began to grow with it. The sole member of the first faculty was Mrs. Belle Spillman, who taught the first high school lesson in Danville, Illinois. Her husband, who died in 1867, had taught at one of the seminaries that preceded the creation of Danville High School. In the days after the Civil War, the typical youth would attend school no longer than his/her 13th or 14th year. The high school began in response to the desire of some Danville families who wanted more advanced public education locally. 

Sixteen pupils were there for roll call on that first day of school in September, 1870, above the Yeomans, Shedd, & LeSeure Hardware Store. These charter DHS students, five boys and 11 girls, were as follows: Augusta Clark, Eudora Denny, Luella English, Joseph Force, Lizzie Fillinger, William Gurley, Lucy Harmon, Charles Hollaway, Delilah Jones, Lottie Jones, Laura Lamon, Joseph O’Neal, Fronia Roberts, Charity Sanders, Edwin Smith, and Mary Webster. Even with the small faculty and student body, such subjects as Greek, Mental Philosophy, Science of Wealth, Analysis, and Astronomy were offered. The school year was divided into three terms with a week of vacation between trimesters. Three of these original 16 students, Laura Lamon, Delilah Jones, and Mary Webster, became the first three graduates of Danville High School at its first commencement held June 14, 1872. One of them, Laura Lamon, resided in the Lamon House, which is now situated at Lincoln Park as a museum. Her grandfather, Dan Beckwith, and her great-uncle, Amos Williams, were among Danville’s founders and its first pioneers.

In 1872, Danville High School moved to rooms on the third floor of the first Washington School, located on the south end of the city block surrounded by Gilbert, Madison, Pine, and Seminary Streets. Danville High School remained at this location for 16 years. Enrollment rose and fell, reaching 152 in 1876, but dropping to 80 in 1879. Principal Silas Gillan (1879-1886) required each student to spell every word correctly from a prepared list in order to graduate. By the late 1880’s, the enrollment had increased to such an extent that students were forced out into the halls. Due to the increasing enrollment, the school board constructed the first Danville High School building in 1888 just north of the first Washington School; the first DHS fronted Seminary Street, as well as Gilbert and Pine Streets. The class of 1888 was the last class to attend school in the old Washington School. Its commencement was held on Thursday evening, June 7, 1888, at the Grand Opera House, now the Fischer Theater. The class history of the class of 1888 was found and returned to DHS in 1989 by the granddaughter of Grace Haggard Rearick who was the secretary of that class. This history, which Grace Haggard read at the graduation ceremony, relates that after vacations that the students, “…returned gladly to the familiar old school room with many better resolves for better improvement in the future. Alas, how soon to be broken? And this we have continued year after year, gradually advancing and can now say of the dear old school we are leaving, ‘With all thy faults, I love thee still.’” Grace Haggard later married George Rearick who became mayor of Danville. Grace Haggard Rearick died in 1965, aged 95 years of age. Her class history was found by her granddaughter, Martha Rearick, while housecleaning and was donated to DHS in 1989.

In the first high school, music instruction began with a choir and the formation of a 16-piece orchestra. By 1898, 273 students were enrolled at DHS, which rose to 340 in 1906. In 1907, the second Washington School was built south of the first DHS, replacing the first school of that name. The second Washington School, which stood until 1980, housed many DHS classes as the first high school became even more crowded as the enrollment increased; its cornerstone now sits on the west campus of the current Danville High School. In 1912, DHS had the largest graduating class until that date – 62 students. The class of 1912 was the first to wear caps and gowns and to leave a class gift. That year, the gift was a massive oak desk for the study room assembly. This desk, inscribed with “Class of 1912,” is presently located in the library at DHS. In September, 1915, a student named John Scopes entered DHS as a 15-year-old freshman and attended one year before moving from the area. John Scopes later became well known as the teacher who challenged the Tennessee state law by teaching evolution at Dayton (TN) High School; his story is memorialized in the novel, Inherit the Wind.

By 1916, the old high school was so crowded that the entire high school building was full in addition to the basement and its tar paper annex, which was dubbed “The Cow Shed” by the students. By this date, the entire first floor of the new Washington School was used for high school instruction. These conditions remained unbearable from 1915 to May, 1923, when a large oval stone fell from the top of the old DHS building on to the ground. The incident prompted the school board to finally build a new DHS and replace the “old high school”. While hopelessly too small, the old high school was only 36 years old when vacated in 1924.

Mr. I. P. Gedney, a Chicago contractor, was employed to construct the new high school for the then staggering sum of one million dollars. The new DHS received its early nickname, “The Million Dollar School,” by local citizens. The new DHS was, at the time of its construction, one of the finest high school buildings in the state and in this part of the nation. The new Danville High School was ready for the first day of school in September, 1924. Mr. Gedney went broke building DHS. He sold all of his equipment here and returned to Chicago penniless. Since 1924, the adolescents as well as the community of Danville. have utilized the wonderful facility that he constructed.

Danville High School remains in the facility built in 1924. Additions and modifications have occurred since 1924 to accommodate new programs and innovations – business applications, driver’s education, computer instruction, music performance, etc. As the music program grew, additions were made to house instrumental programs. In 1939, the bleachers in the gym were switched from the east and west walls to the north and south walls; classroom and athletic offices were also added at this time. In 1973, the four-story addition onto the Fairchild side of DHS provided for new art rooms, science laboratories, library areas, and English classrooms; not long after its construction, the community regretted the loss of the former façade of DHS. In 1991, the building was renovated and significantly increased in size. 

That year the industrial education building was torn down and a large addition was built onto the south end of the building including a new entrance that included a facsimile of the original school clock over its door, music classrooms, computer labs, industrial technology rooms, new general classrooms, as well as a spacious field house to handle indoor meets as well as the many practices for both boys and girls teams.