The school opened on September 6, 1960, and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States.

[6] It had a library, which projects from a corner of the building into the courtyard, had 7000 books in its first year, and a cafeteria which seated 800 students.

[7] Students were drawn from areas previously served by Franklin and Madison High Schools.

It was designed to have conference rooms connected to classrooms, with windows between them, to allow teachers to either meet with individual students while keeping an eye on the class as a whole or let students study in the conference room while teaching a class in the main classroom.

Classes also varied in length, resulting in a complicated schedule based upon 20-minute modules, which was created by an IBM 7090.

Not all teachers adjusted well to the student-discussion focused classes, and some students goofed off instead of studying during the free third of their school day.

Coached by Ken Trapp and John Hughes, the 1981 championship team was the first in Oregon history to finish undefeated at 26–0.