Abraham Lincoln High School came into existence on Tuesday, August 27, 1940, accepting approximately 950 students under Lincoln’s first Principal, Clyde W. White. Its opening and dedication ceremony was held on September 22, 1940.

The result of a 1938 bond measure approved by San Francisco voters to address the increasing population in the Western San Francisco area, Abraham Lincoln High School was incorporated into a modern three-story building that was completed at a cost of over $750,000 in 1940 with just 50 classrooms, a cafeteria, a football field, and a library. A little known iact is that the North and South Gymnasiums, the auditorium, and the bungalow expansion were completed much later as separate projects.