Lincoln High School basketball team, with principal Dr. Charles E. Rochelle standing second right. The school, at 635 Lincoln Ave., opened in 1928. The high school portion closed in 1962, and in 1985 it became an elementary school, as it operates today. When the school opened in 1928 it incorporated students from the previous Frederick Douglass High School. Dr. Charles E. Rochelle served as a private in the U.S. Army in World War I. After the war, he became the first African-American to receive a doctorate in education from the University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Rochelle was a social studies teacher and then principal of Lincoln High School in Evansville, IN, retiring in 1962. He served as a member of Liberty Baptist, Cawthar Shrine Temple, Deaconess Hospital Foundation Board, and was a 33rd Degree Mason.