Yozgat High School

Yozgat High School (Yozgat Lisesi), also popularly known as 'Taş Mektep' (the Stone School), stands on Lise Caddesi in the Aşağınohutlu neighbourhood of the city centre, about 650 metres from the Çapanoğlu Mosque, and is one of Yozgat's most striking historic school buildings. It was founded in 1895, during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, as a five-year day school (idadi) preparing graduates of the rüştiye (middle school) for higher education. The building, two storeys tall excluding its basement, is built of yellow cut stone; its main entrance on the south façade is topped by a projecting bay window, while separate entrances also exist on the west and east façades. The arched, iron-grilled windows line the front and side façades, and three projecting bays run across the second floor of the north façade, the central one crescent-shaped. Neither the builder nor the patron who commissioned the structure is known, because the marble inscription above the entrance was chiselled off by local administrators who misinterpreted a law of 23 May 1927 concerning the removal of imperial tughras and emblems. The school served as a primary school until 1912, then as a boarding middle school; after a period of closure it reopened in 1924 at public request and formally became a lise (high school) from the 1933-34 academic year onward. Having educated numerous graduates who went on to serve in state administration, the school for a time carried the prestige of a university within Yozgat.