[2] Miami Edison Senior High School had its humble beginnings in a small palmetto-thatched hut inhabited by spiders, beetles, 10 pupils, and one teacher.

After this tropical edifice burned to the ground in 1895, the activities were moved twice, finally being established in a rickety, four-room structure in 1897.

In 1915, after the destruction of the old building by a violent windstorm, the long-cherished dream of Dr. J. G. DuPuis, A. N. Fallensen, and E. N. Webb, trustees, was realized as Dade County Agricultural High School came into existence.

This rapid growth continued as the impetus given to athletics by the employment of the first regular coach brought the clamor for a gymnasium.

In 1928, the present building was completed and into it moved 892 students and a faculty of 32, marking the beginning of the junior and senior high system.

Under the influence of Principal Fisher and Henry Filer, then chairman of the school board, suggested names were submitted to the student body.

The Red Raiders have shown their superiority in football, for they often dominated the strongest league in Florida, the Big Ten Conference.

The varsity is proud of the fact that the Orange Bowl Stadium was dedicated by an Edison team playing Coral Gables in 1938, and has since remained the home of the Red Raiders.

During his administration, the "Operation Amigo" program found its beginning in the United States in the halls of Miami Edison in January 1962.

For the prominent part Edison played in this now nationwide program in hemispheric understanding, Duncan became the first North American to be awarded the "Alfonso Ugarte" medal for intercultural friendship.

The prevailing school spirit, standards of integrity, and ideals of scholarship and sportsmanship have reigned supreme throughout the years.

Reflecting the population shifts of the region, Edison went from having a predominantly white student body in the early 1960s to an almost completely African-American one by the time the senior high moved to its present building in 1979.

The state's accountability program grades a school by a complex formula that looks at both current scores and annual improvement on the reading, math, writing, and science FCATs.