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Fruitvale School District 28 oversaw Fruitvale High School, which began in 1911. A Junior-senior high school was built by the WPA in 1936. It was an adobe brick building that faced North Avenue on the north side of the street.

After the consolidation of the Clifton, Fruitvale, and Pear Park School Districts in 1946, it was renamed Central High School. At that time, teens who had attended Clifton High School were sent to Central, and the Clifton High School closed.

According to oral history interviewee Helen (Young) Johnson, who lived in Fruitvale, the school had an auditorium that was used for community classes put on by the WPA during the Depression. When the school was demolished, bricks were sold to private individuals as building materials.

*Information for this article was taken from "In the Beginning... A History of the Districts and Schools that became Mesa County Valley School District Number 51" by Albert and Terry LaSalle.

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