Francis Joseph Reitz High School, commonly known as F.J. Reitz High School or simply Reitz, is a public high school located at 350 Dreier Boulevard on Evansville’s West Side. Opened in 1918, Reitz is one of Evansville’s oldest and most recognizable schools and has developed an especially strong identity within the city’s West Side community.
The school is part of the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation (EVSC) and its athletic teams are known as the Panthers.
Reitz has produced notable graduates in professional sports, entertainment, business and other fields, including Olympic champion Lilly King, PGA Championship winner Bob Hamilton, television producer Matt Williams and professional athletes who have competed in Major League Baseball, professional football and major college athletics.
The school is also home to one of Evansville’s most distinctive sports landmarks: the Reitz Bowl.
The Need for a West Side High School
During the early 20th century, Evansville had only one public high school.
Evansville High School, which later became Central High School, was located downtown. For families living on the rapidly developing West Side, sending children across the city to attend high school could be difficult and expensive.
A group known as the Centennial Club, led by Mrs. C.F. Werner, began pushing the Evansville school board to construct another high school specifically serving the West Side.
The campaign lasted several years.
Eventually, the school board agreed that a second high school was needed and selected land on what was then known as Coal Mine Hill or Forest Hill, the elevated area that would eventually become closely associated with Reitz High School.
The project encountered financial problems during World War I.
That’s where Francis Joseph Reitz entered the story.
Francis Joseph Reitz
The school was named for Francis Joseph Reitz, a prominent Evansville banker, businessman and civic benefactor.
Reitz played an important role in making financing for the new West Side school possible through the sale of bonds. His contribution to the project was significant enough that the new school was named in his honor.
The cornerstone for F.J. Reitz High School was laid on November 3, 1917.
Evansville Mayor Benjamin Bosse presided over the ceremony.
Construction continued through the following year, and the original school opened in September 1918.
The building was constructed of brick and stone in a classical architectural style and originally consisted of two stories and a basement.
With the opening of Reitz, the city’s original Evansville High School became known as Central High School.
Reitz graduated its first senior class in 1921.
Reitz Hill
The school’s location became an important part of its identity.
Reitz sits high above much of the surrounding West Side on what became known as Reitz Hill.
The elevation provides dramatic views from parts of the school property and helped create one of the most unusual high school football stadiums in Indiana.
Generations of students growing up around Reitz have simply referred to the area as “the Hill.”
That relationship between the school and the surrounding neighborhoods helped create the unusually strong sense of identity associated with Reitz.
For many West Side families, attending Reitz became generational.
Parents, children and grandchildren could all call themselves Panthers.
The Reitz Bowl
Perhaps nothing symbolizes Reitz High School better than the Reitz Bowl.
When the school was constructed on the hillside, engineers needed a retaining structure behind the building.
Someone recognized that the natural shape of the land could also be used to create a football stadium.
The result was the Reitz Bowl.
Construction of the original seating took place in 1921. Early sections of the stadium were carved directly into the hillside, creating the bowl-shaped setting that remains recognizable more than a century later.
The original center seating area could accommodate several thousand spectators, with additional sections added as the stadium developed.
Reitz began varsity football play in the Bowl in 1921.
Over time, the stadium grew into one of the most famous high school football venues in Indiana.
Football on the Hill
Football became an enormous part of Reitz culture.
The Panthers developed one of Southern Indiana’s strongest high school football traditions, and Friday nights at the Bowl became a West Side institution.
Reitz played its first night football game at the Bowl in 1931.
The stadium has undergone numerous improvements over the decades, including new seating, lighting, drainage systems, an all-weather track, modern scoreboards, sound systems and eventually synthetic turf.
In 2011, the playing surface was officially named Herman Byers Field, honoring legendary Reitz football coach Herman Byers.
The Bowl has also hosted football far beyond Reitz High School.
Nearby Mater Dei High School has played home games there, and Evansville College once used the Bowl for college football.
From 1948 through 1956, the stadium hosted the Refrigerator Bowl, a postseason college football game that brought teams from around the country to Evansville.
Few high schools anywhere in Indiana can claim a football venue with a comparable history.
Growth of the School
The Reitz building changed dramatically as Evansville and the West Side grew.
A four-story classroom addition was constructed on the western end of the school in 1926.
Much larger changes came during the 1950s.
A 1956 addition brought new offices, counseling areas, a nurse’s suite, home economics facilities, band and choir rooms, a library and other spaces.
Another major expansion followed in 1957, including a five-story classroom wing, additional gymnasium space, industrial shops, an auditorium, cafeteria and other facilities.
The additions transformed the appearance and size of the original 1918 school.
A greenhouse was added in 1973, and additional school facilities continued to develop during subsequent decades.
The $26 Million Renovation
By the 1990s, Reitz faced a strange situation.
It was one of Evansville’s oldest high school buildings, but generations of additions had created a complicated collection of hallways, levels and structures.
EVSC ultimately chose to renovate rather than abandon the historic West Side campus.
More than $26 million was invested in a major modernization project.
When Reitz celebrated its 80th anniversary in 1998, the school looked dramatically different.
The project modernized the historic campus while allowing Reitz to remain exactly where generations of West Side students had attended school.
Rather than replacing Reitz with a new suburban-style campus elsewhere, the school remained on the Hill.
School Identity
Reitz athletic teams are known as the Panthers.
The school’s traditional colors are blue and gray.
The Panthers compete in numerous sports, but football has historically occupied a particularly prominent place in the school’s identity because of the program’s success and the unusual atmosphere of the Reitz Bowl.
Basketball, baseball, swimming, wrestling and numerous other Reitz programs have also produced successful athletes.
The school has produced competitors who later reached the NFL, Major League Baseball, professional golf and the Olympic Games.
Lilly King
One of the most accomplished athletes ever produced by an Evansville high school is Lilly King.
King graduated from Reitz before attending Indiana University, where she became one of the country’s dominant collegiate swimmers.
She subsequently became an Olympic and world champion specializing in breaststroke.
King won Olympic gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and continued representing the United States through three Olympic Games.
Her international success made her one of the most recognizable athletes ever to come from Evansville and one of Reitz High School’s most celebrated graduates.
Bob Hamilton
Decades before King reached the Olympics, another Reitz graduate reached the top of professional sports.
Bob Hamilton, a member of the Reitz class of 1934, became a professional golfer.
His greatest victory came at the 1944 PGA Championship, where Hamilton defeated legendary golfer Byron Nelson in the championship match.
Hamilton won ten professional tournaments during his career and became one of the most accomplished golfers ever produced by Evansville.
Matt Williams
Reitz has also produced notable graduates outside athletics.
Matt Williams, a 1985 Reitz graduate, became a successful television writer and producer.
Williams worked on television programs including The Cosby Show before becoming closely associated with two of the defining television sitcoms of the late 1980s and 1990s: Roseanne and Home Improvement.
He later worked extensively in film and television production.
His career made Williams one of the most successful entertainment figures to graduate from an Evansville high school.
More Than a Century on the West Side
Reitz celebrated its centennial in 2018.
By then, the school had educated generations of Evansville residents from the same hillside campus.
The surrounding city had changed dramatically.
Evansville expanded.
Neighborhoods changed.
New schools opened.
Old buildings disappeared.
Yet Reitz remained on the Hill.
The continued presence of both the original school and the Reitz Bowl gives the campus a historical character that is increasingly uncommon among American public high schools.
For Evansville’s West Side in particular, Reitz is more than simply a school building.
It is a neighborhood landmark and an important part of West Side identity.
Students don’t simply attend Reitz.
They become part of a tradition that stretches back to 1918.
F.J. Reitz High School has produced notable graduates in athletics, entertainment, business and other fields.
The following Reitz alumni currently have entries on Evansville.wiki:
Notable Reitz Alumni
Paul Musgrave
Rudy Charles