WRITTEN BY PAUL DORPAT

COURTESY OF LARRY HOFFMAN

When it was new in 1891, Rainier School would have seemed grandiose for its neighborhood — except that it was filled from the beginning. Primary students were moved from the building in 1940, but it survived for years thereafter as a branch for Edison Technical School. Portables on the site now are a training center operated by Seattle Central Community College.

	PAUL DORPAT

The Rainier School illustrated here includes the north wing (on the right), added in 1900. The added rooms were needed. For instance, each morning through the 1902-03 term 21 teachers welcomed nearly 1,100 students. If they stayed in Seattle, they might have attended one or more of Bruno J. Benedetti's reunions.

Benedetti, class of 1933, was Rainier's super-alum. Weeks before the 67-year-old structure was razed in 1957, Benedetti staged the last of the Rainier reunions to be held in the school's auditorium. There, he consoled the 500 former students and teachers attending by reminding them that "memories are not encased in a building; friendships don't wither outside the schoolroom ... We shall never forget." Benedetti organized Rainier reunions into the 1990s.

More information about the old school is available in a new book by Nile Thompson and Carolyn J. Marr. "Building for Learning: Seattle Public School Histories, 1862-2000" is a 342-page encyclopedia covering all the city's public schools. This new history is not merely an update of old school chronicles but an original treatment, and it is elegantly illustrated. To get a copy of the $30 book, contact Eleanor Toews at etoews@seattleschools.org or 206-252-0795.