The Trade School Building

The Trade School Building. Built 1905. , This unique building originally housed one of America's first vocational schools. The school was founded in 1886 by Emma Paulding to teach girls how to sew. The curriculum expanded to include a variety of other domestic arts. Boys were later taught such mechanical skills as metal work and chair caning. Eventually, classes were added to help integrate immigrants into the community with courses such as English language instruction, cooking and bookkeeping., This building was donated by philanthropist Cornelia Prime and was designed by Cady, Berg an See, the architects of the original Metropolitan Opera House and The American Museum of Natural History. In 1908 an accessory concrete block building was added to the rear of the building for mechanical skills instruction., After the Trade School closed up in the 1930s, the building was used by the Huntington School District for high school shop classes as well as kindergarten classes. Later it was acquired by the town when space in Old Town Hall (now the hotel two doors down) proved inadequate., The Huntington Historical Society purchased the building in 1982 and it now houses the Society's administration offices and archives collection. An addition to provide more archives storage was added in 2016.