North High School history
By: By Buzzy Bohn 11/01/2010
North High School has been a part of the community for over 120 years and has occupied four different buildings. For decades North High was the only high school not only for all of North Minneapolis but also for Brooklyn Center. (Patrick Henry, built as a junior high, didn’t add freshmen until 1937 and graduated its first class of seniors in 1941, fifty years after the first graduating class at North in 1891.)
The first Northside High School opened in 1888 on 18th and Emerson. It was actually a school that went from 1st through 11th grades. It didn’t take long before the school district realized that it was not big enough for all the students in the area. The district built a new North High School and renamed the first building Logan Elementary School. That second building was destroyed by fire in 1913. It was replaced by the building that most people are talking about when they refer to the “old North High.” It was on 17th and Fremont with the athletic field directly north of the school. The current North High building was built in 1973 at 15th and James. This building has a TV production studio and the KBEM Jazz88 radio station. The athletic field is a few blocks away on 17th and Fremont where the last building had stood. Many well-known and famous people attended North High, including Governor Floyd B. Olson, the Andrew Sisters, actor Robert Vaughn, sportscaster and writer Sid Hartman, businessman and school board member W. Harry Davis, music producer Terry Lewis, businessman Irwin Jacobs, former school superintendent Richard Green, attorney Ron Mesbesher, author Harrison Salisbury, and “Clancy the Cop” John Gallos.