The Santa Barbara Girls School was for a time the city’s largest private school for girls. The school was the descendant of Santa Barbara’s first private school for girls, the Blanchard-Gamble School, which opened its doors in 1902.
Mary Elizabeth Gamble was a native of Sacramento, born in 1858. Educated in Europe, upon her return to the U.S. she taught for a time in San Francisco, before coming to Santa Barbara to open a school in the house she shared with her friend, Elizabeth Blanchard, at 2024 Anacapa Street. The day and boarding school, renamed the Gamble School in 1911 when Gamble took sole charge, developed a national reputation for preparing young women for entry into eastern colleges such as Bryn Mawr and Vassar.
Gamble’s retirement in 1914 prompted some of Santa Barbara’s most influential citizens to incorporate to found the Santa Barbara Girls School. A separate group formed to purchase a house at 1624 Garden Street and lease it to the new school. One factor in deciding to buy this particular residence was that the streetcar line ran right by the house, which would allow day students to easily reach the school.