SPACE INVADERS THE

Secrets Of Duluth Denfeld

BY CHRISTA LAWLER

In a battle between a swimming pool and a clock tower, the architects won — though, in the lower levels of Denfeld High School there are still traces of the aborted aquatics mission. This past spring, a reporter and photographer were offered a super-size nooks and crannies look at the West Duluth-based school’s highest heights and lowest depths by an outgoing tour guide, Joe Vukelich.

The recent retiree literally wrote the book on the school. “Come Back Home: A History of Denfeld High School” is a five-chapter collection of stories, alum and old-old photographs.

Here are some fun facts about the inner workings of Denfeld High School.

No Nukes

There is a tunnel that runs beneath the building at 4405 W. Fourth St., and it once was considered an acceptable fallout shelter. It even held pre-packaged crackers from the Civil Defense, though they’ve since been eaten recreationally.

Turns out this wouldn’t have been a great spot to wait out the bomb. They wouldn’t have been able to keep air circulating without letting the big bad wafts in.

Speaking of tunnels: According to urban legend, there is one that leads from the school to Public Schools Stadium. That’s false.

A Message For Hunters

There are hidden messages in the walls on the third floor — bas-relief images. According to Vukelich’s book, the woman with her finger to her lips is a nod to it being a place of creative breath and, potentially, a wink-wink about an on-campus time capsule; the monkey is a message of human folly; the winged griffin, in mythology, guarded a treasure chest of gold. But the gold was really sunshine. “So the architect’s secret message is to have Denfeld be the land of perpetual sunshine,” Vukelich wrote in his book.

Haunted Or Not

The big question: Is the auditorium, a grand space that cost 10 percent of the $1.5 million dollar cost of the entire school construction in 1925, teeming with spirits? Shrug. There are plenty of past students and staff with anecdotal evidence: figures in the audience, boards inexplicably falling from the ceiling, a certain chilly spot on the stage.

But no one has ever wrangled a figure to the ground and ripped off its mask Scooby-Doo-style, so.

In unrelated news: plenty of biggies — literally and figuratively — have played that stage: Johnny Cash, Ed Sullivan, the Ink Spots and a circus elephant.

POOL V. TOWER

There is a sunken area in the lower levels of the school — in some ways a memorial to the former principal who lost the pool versus tower battle against the architects. The class of 1991 made light of it in the yearbook, noting that you can’t swim in the tower but they still like it.

Room 3101, marked Tower Entrance, is the point of access. It’s normally off limits, but as seniors near graduation, it’s onlimits. Its highest height requires scaling a narrow ladder with a steep incline. It offers a 180-degree look at West Duluth, and a looksee into yesteryear. Past students have signed the floor, the walls, the ceiling and some have lined the windows with student ID cards. The tower tours started in the mid1990s — though some have doubled back to scribble a name, including members of the class of 1964.