Our History

The site of the South Whidbey Community Center had its origins as a school as early as 1915, when a wooden Langley Grade School was built.

This was actually the fifth school in the Langley area, the first one being in a private house at Brown’s Point (now Sandy Point), a small wooden school on Decker Street, and later one across from WICA on the bluff. Beginning in 1900, two schoolhouses were built at the corner of Park and Third Street in the parking lot of the former Funeral Home in Langley.

In 1911 a makeshift High School was held in two rooms of the Vroman house where Langley Park is now located on the corner of Anthes and Second Street.

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The new Langley Grade School was built on the site now occupied by the South Whidbey Community Center.

It housed grades 1-12. High School students were taught on the second floor and grade schoolers on the first floor.  But, it soon became apparent that a new high school was needed.

A new brick high school was built in 1935, a little to the north of the wooden grade school, and opened in January 1936.

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In 1940, with the continuing consolidation of South Whidbey Schools, a larger Grade School was needed. The old wooden Grade School was demolished and a new brick Langley Elementary School was opened in 1942.

A new High School was built on Maxwelton Road and opened for the 1981/82 school year. The brick Langley High School was then used by the Langley Middle School, which is what the brick Grade School had become when new Elementary and Intermediate schools were built on Maxwelton Road.

Langley High School now houses Island Dance, and the auditorium is home to Whidbey Children’s Theater.

On June 6, 2017, Langley Middle School closed and in Fall 2017, the South Whidbey Community Center started a new chapter in these historic buildings.

Learn More about the Center's History at the Historic Langley Website

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When Campus Buildings Were Constructed.

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