Denfeld

By John Lundy jlundy@duluthnews.com

Although it includes residential neighborhoods and businesses along Grand Avenue, the heart of the Denfeld neighborhood — and arguably all of West Duluth — is Denfeld High School. The school wasn’t always in what’s now known as the Denfeld neighborhood. It opened as one floor of Irving Elementary School (now Irving School Apartments) in 1905 and later was named Duluth Industrial High School, according to the historical section of the school’s website. The high school was moved to 725 N. Central Ave. in 1915 where it took the name of about-to-retire schools Superintendent Robert E. Denfeld. It found its current home, bordered by Grand Avenue, 44th Avenue West, 46th Avenue West and West Sixth Street, in 1926. The red brick and limestone structure cost $1.25 million to build, according to the school website. It features medieval carvings by master stone carver George Thrana, who came to Duluth from Norway in 1899. The school’s auditorium, built for $25,000, was renovated in 2006 at a cost of $1.2 million.

West Duluth residents are fiercely proud of their high school. When three different plans were considered for restructuring the schools in 2007, the “White Plan” that would have transformed the Denfeld building into a middle school and would have built a new western high school didn’t go over well. That remained the case even when a consultant from Johnson Controls warned that keeping Denfeld as a high school “would take significant changes, like driving bulldozers through parts of the building,” according to a News Tribune report at the time.

A survey at the time by national research firm Decision Resources found 56 percent favored the Red Plan that kept Denfeld as a high school, 12 percent the Blue Plan that would have kept Central as the only high school, and 10 percent favored the White Plan.

“The results are clear,” said Bill Morris, president of the survey company, according to a News Tribune story then. “You have a solid working majority in favor of keeping Denfeld as a high school in this district.”

The school was closed for the 2010-11 school year while the bulk of renovations took place. The renovated school, open for the 2011-12 school year, combined the new with the old. The skylight from the new commons area provides a view of Denfeld’s iconic clock tower.