Amphi Neighborhood and Amphitheater Public Schools, District 10
With a population of slightly less than 10,000, Amphi is a neighborhood in Tucson, Arizona. The majority of residents in Amphi rent their houses, giving it a metropolitan feel. There are several pubs, restaurants, coffee shops, and parks throughout the Amphi area, as it's largely a family area.
Amphitheater Public Schools, also known as Amphi or District 10, is the third largest public school district in Tucson, Arizona, by enrollment, with about 13,500 students and a workforce of about 2000 employees. On July 3, 1893, Amphi was established. With its headquarters in Flowing Wells, it currently serves sections of North Tucson (known as Amphitheater), Casas Adobes, Catalina Foothills, and the northwest Tucson areas of Oro Valley, eastern Tortolita, and Catalina.
Following the Mexican–American War of 1848, an influx of American settlers started to arrive in Tucson. Ranchers and settlers founded homesteads along the banks of the Rillito River in the rural area northwest of the city. The town of Rillito grew rapidly, and the Rillito School District was founded in 1889. (later to become the Flowing Wells School District).
Residents in Rillito wanted a nearby school so that district students wouldn't have to drive to the Congress Street School in downtown Tucson. The Rillito School Board suggested a school site, but a number of settlers said that it was just as unsuitable as the Congress Street School. These immigrants lived on the eastern outskirts of the Rillito School System, and subsequently petitioned the Pima County Board of Supervisors to form their own school district. Amphitheater Public Schools was founded on July 3, 1893.
Rancher and assayer Edward L. Wetmore (the Wetmore family is the namesake of Wetmore Road in North Tucson), homesteader and carpenter Levi Marston Prince (namesake of Prince Road in North Tucson), and rancher Joseph D. Andrews were among the founding board members, according to David Leighton, an Amphitheater High School alum and history writer for the Arizona Daily Star newspaper.
The district's unusual name refers to the Tucson basin's geography. J. D. Andrews saw an immense amphitheater as he gazed north toward the Tortolita Mountains and the Santa Catalina Mountains, east to the Rincon Mountains, south to the Santa Rita Mountains, and west to the Tucson Mountains.
With 11 boys, the first Amphitheater School opened in October 1893. On the southeast corner of East Prince Road and North First Avenue in Tucson, the district opened a permanent school building in 1904. The school briefly closed in 1910 due to low attendance, but soon reopened when enrollment increased. The current location of L. M. Prince School and Amphitheater Middle School on East Prince Road near North Stone Avenue was chosen as the final site for Amphitheater School, which opened in 1913.
In 1924, the school was extended to have four more classrooms. The Amphitheater Carnival, an annual group festival that ran until 1958, was established by the district in 1928. From 48 students in 1919, the district had expanded to over 500 students by 1934.
Rather than sending area high school students to Tucson High School in the Tucson Unified School District, which is located near the University of Arizona in central Tucson, district voters desired the creation of a district high school by the 1930s. Amphitheater High School on East Prince Road was completed in 1939 with a mix of state and federal (Works Progress Administration) funds under the direction of E.C. Nash, the district's first superintendent hired in 1937. Tucson's second high school is Amphitheater High School.
The Amphi district saw steady population development and was named Tucson's first suburb by the Arizona Daily Star newspaper in the 1930s.
We deem ourselves very fortunate to be a part of Tucson's history. As a result, we feel it a privilege to be asked to help our neighbors with roof issues. If you have any questions or complaints about your roof, call DC Roofing of Arizona today at (520) 979-9095. We'll be happy to come out and examine and appraise the roof for free and without commitment.
If you haven't yet explored all the neighborhood pages we have shared with you here, you may want to start where we started with the Sam Hughes neighborhood page.