School Buildings – North Community High School Alumni Association

MANY THINGS HAVE OCCURRED SINCE NORTH HIGH WAS FOUNDED IN 1888

West Broadway was once called Christmas Rd and was only a cow path that led down to the Mississippi river.

North was the first high school built outside of downtown.

North was the first school to have a lunch program.

North was the first Minneapolis city school to produce a governor, Floyd B. Olson.

1949 was the last North High class to have two graduations.

The class of 1914 spent the entire year off campus while North was being rebuilt. They occupied the then recently vacated Central high school building downtown.

North was the southernmost school in MN to win the state ski meet until Hopkins won in the early 1970s.

North is the only city school to have a National sports championship title: the undefeated football team of 1907.

Minneapolis North High has maybe the oldest and strongest alumni non profit association in the country. Other schools have called us to see how to start an alumni group at their school.

North High School opened in the fall of 1888 or in January of 1889 by some accounts.

Below are pictures of the buildings through the decades. North High as been in four building, all within six blocks of each other, the second and third buildings were at the same location.

President Grover Cleveland was in office when the idea of a north side school began. Under the guidance of local businessmen who saw the growth of the north side as needing their own high school, they successfully convinced the city to construct a high school for the area residents in 1888. Construction soon began and North High School opened January 1, 1889 at the north-east corner of 18th and Emerson Avenue North.

When to student body grew too large, a new building was constructed one block west at 15th and Fremont.

The “new” second North High building celebrated opening in 1896, but had a short life.

On June 18, 1913, fire destroyed the school (it was reported to have started in the shops area).

The third North High would reopen on the same site one year later on the same footprint and window pattern.

How much of the old school was reused?.

In September of 1914, one year after the fire, another “new” North opened with a grand dedication on the same site, where it proudly stood as a beacon of the North Side until it met the fate of the wrecking ball in the name of progress 60 years later (winter of 1973-74).

When the land was cleared of the school, Hobb’s football field, named after former principal Waldo Hobbs, was moved 150 yards south to occupy the former school grounds.

In 1973, another “new” North High School opened at the new location, 1500 James Avenue North. Hard to believe that it has been 35 years since that move, that is over 1/2 the age of the “old” school it replaced. After 1976, when the “Lady Polars” began participating in sports at North, the school song, LOYALTY, was altered to reflect both the girls and the boys athletic teams.

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