By Buzzy Bohn
In 1920 a small wooden temporary school building was erected on the corner of 52nd and Camden Avenues by the Minneapolis Public Schools. The school, which was in an area with a large number of Scandinavian immigrants, was named for Jenny Lind who was a famous Swedish opera singer. Jenny Lind, often called the “Swedish Nightingale,” was born on October 6,1820 and died November 2, 1887. There were additions added to this little school building in 1925 and 1927, so that by 1931, when a fire report of the school was made, it had 10 classrooms and 344 students. The number of children in the area continued to grow, so that by the mid-1930s the district was looking for a different site to build a new permanent structure.
In 1937 a new brick school building was built on 50th and Bryant Avenues N. As was the case for many schools built in the late 1920s, this new building was the same architectural plan as one wing of Loring School. With the post war baby boom of the late 1940s, the decision was made to build an addition onto the school in 1950. A time capsule with all the students and faculty names, along with newspapers, rosters of PTA members, and the bids and contracts for the building of the addition was added to the cornerstone. Enrollment had reached 703 in 1956 and another addition was built onto the school in 1957.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the school district was projecting that enrollment was going to go down and started closing a number of schools. In the spring of 1982, around 15 schools were closed, a handful of them on the Northside, including Shingle Creek and Jenny Lind. At that time the district also converted Olson Junior High to an elementary school and Northside junior high students were sent to Franklin and Anwatin Junior Highs. In the case of Jenny Lind, the building was not only closed, but was also torn down.
As soon as the fall of 1982, it became apparent that too many schools had been closed because the remaining schools were very over crowded. By the fall of 1986, all the closed schools that were still standing were reopened. The school district then had to consider rebuilding all the schools that had been torn down. A new Jenny Lind School was built at 50th and Bryant again in 1995.
From a little wooden building to the current large building, Jenny Lind School has a history that spans more than 100 years in the Camden area.