About Sidney Lanier High School
Opened in 1915 as McKinley Elementary, then became Lanier Junior School when the junior school system was implemented in 1923.
The school was named after the American poet and writer, Sidney Lanier. Sidney Clopton Lanier (February 3, 1842 – September 7, 1881) was an American musician, poet and author. He served in the Confederate army, worked on a blockade running ship for which he was imprisoned (resulting in his catching tuberculosis), taught, worked at a hotel where he gave musical performances, was a church organist, and worked as a lawyer. As a poet he sometimes, though not exclusively, used dialects. Many of his poems are written in heightened, but often archaic, American English. He became a flautist and sold poems to publications. He eventually became a professor of literature at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and is known for his adaptation of musical meter to poetry.
A new McKinley Elementary School opened in 1924 in the Monte Vista Historic District.
In 1929 Lanier became a six-year school when the high school grades were added. Lanier continued to be a six-year school until Tafolla Junior High School opened across the street in 1969.
A new Lanier campus on the site of the old school opened in 1975.