A while back I read a news story about Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) selling three of their closed buildings. I have some history with two of those buildings; Willard School and the Gordon Center. I started my career in the Minneapolis school district at Willard School in 1986, which at that time also included the Gordon Center. My son was also a student (4th-6th) during my first three years there. In addition, I have a profound fondness for the wonderful historic Willard building.
Willard School, at 1615 Queen Ave. N., was named after Frances Willard (1839-1898) who was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women’s suffragist. She was the first woman to have her statue placed in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. Land for the school was purchased in 1909, building began in 1910, and it opened in the middle of the 1911 school year. In 1916 land was acquired in the lower area north of the building, where Willard Park is now. An addition to the school was started in 1918 and was finished in 1920. (I need to stop here and address a rumor I’ve heard over the years that Willard was originally a fire station. I’ve searched and found no evidence that this is true. If anyone has evidence of there being a fire station on this site, please send it to the Camden News!)
According to a history of Willard School written by the PTA in 1952, back in the early school days if a winter storm was coming in school would be dismissed. Although parents took it for granted the school would close as the storm came, all the factories in town would blow their whistles to signify the schools were closing. The fathers would then come to pick up students in bobsleds, while the teachers stayed until every student was picked up and then would have to trudge through the snow storm to catch the street car home.
Willard School would continue to thrive and grow over the decades, and by the 1950s and ‘60s there were as many as 770 students some years. But in 1982, the MPS school board and superintendent Richard Green decided to close Willard, along with 16 other schools including Hamilton, Jenny Lind (which was torn down) and Pillsbury across the river (also torn down). The Willard School building was shuttered but not “moth balled.”
The closing of those schools caused all the other Northside and Northeast elementary schools to be very over crowded. Many parents and community members fought to have Willard re-opened as a magnet school. Eventually the school district said they would re-open Willard as an arts magnet school. This, however, still did not sit well with Northside parents. We wanted a magnet school to feed into the SummaTech program at North High School. Finally, in early 1986 the district relented and decided to open the Willard M/S/T (Math/Science/Technology) Magnet School.
Remember I said the building was shuttered but not moth balled? That meant it wasn’t heated properly, maintained, etc., so there was mold growing on walls, damaged pipes and a host of other things that had to be repaired before the Willard (and Gordon Center) buildings could be re-opened in the fall of 1986. When the magnet program opened it was a K-4 program spanning both buildings with 5th and 6th grades added over the next two years. The Willard M/S/T drew students from all over the Northside and Northeast. It was one of the first, if not the first, elementary school in the city to have a full student computer lab. It was also one of the first two city school libraries to get an electronic card catalog and check out system.
Sadly, in 2005 the Minneapolis School Board voted again to close Willard School. After 94 years, 19 principals, hundreds of staff members and thousands of students this prominent Northside school closed for the final time in June 2005.