History: Washburn High School

Now known as Tangletown, Washburn Park was named after Cadwallader Washburn, a tycoon who donated money to create an orphanage in a picturesque location.

Washburn Park’s land was platted by notable landscape architect, Horace Cleveland, who left intact the charm of the rolling landscape and favored ample lots.

While the orphanage was the first permanent tenant in the area, the rolling landscape and nearby Minnehaha Creek began to attract the attention of Minneapolitans seeking a more pastoral place to raise their children.

The number of families with children of high school age reached critical mass in the early 1920’s, and it became clear to the Minneapolis Board of Education that they would need an additional high school in South Minneapolis.

As the neighborhood of Washburn Park began to grow, it became clear to the Minneapolis Board of Education that they would need an additional high school in South Minneapolis.

The Board of Education acquired unused land adjacent to the Washburn Memorial Orphan Asylum and built Washburn High School in 1924. Like the Orphanage, the new school was named for Cadwallader Washburn, a major general in the Civil War, congressman, and businessman known for creating the Gold Medal Flour Company.

Washburn had donated the money to create an orphanage in an idyllic location and the neighborhood of Washburn Park (now Tangletown) had grown up around it.

Students attended the first year of school at Washburn High School in 1925.

Students who attended Washburn High School in its early years recall Washburn as school where mutual respect and responsibility were present. Lockers did not have locks and the school was kept neat and tidy despite the numbers of students.

Otis Dypwick, a member of the first graduating class of Washburn, attributed much of the school’s positive, close-knit feeling to the leadership of Principal A. E. MacQuarrie who led the school from 1928 to 1944. Dypwick said, “He was totally dedicated to making Washburn graduates better people for their experience there.”

Dypwick described MacQuarrie as a giant of a man who, “glided silently through the halls despite his 240 pounds, wearing gum-soled shoes. Many a time he was a surprise party to cliques and conversations by non-suspecting students.”

Principal MacQuarrie was known for his pride in the school and his participation in student life. He lived nearby on Nicollet Avenue and hosted a celebration for seniors on Class Day each year.

The first students of Washburn found it “thrilling to be ‘in’ on the selection of school colors, school songs, newspaper and yearbook titles.

Many of the students’ choices referenced Washburn and Gold Medal Flour. The school’s newspaper was named  “The Grist” after milling technology and the school colors of orange and blue were Gold Medal Flour’s colors as well. The athletic teams were called the “Millers”.

Vern McCoy, Washburn’s first basketball coach, suggested another reason students and faculty existed in harmony. “I believe the unusually close rapport between the students and faculty was due in large measure to the absence of a ‘generation gap’.” McCoy was only two years older than the students he coached on the basketball team.

The depression of the 1930’s impacted Washburn High School. Katherine Salisbury Ring, class of 1939, wrote in the Fiftieth Anniversary Commemorative Edition of the Grist that, “If you were at Washburn between 1930 and 1936, you lived with the Depression. Corner apple sellers, bread lines, soup kitchens, and the Veterans’ March were real.”

Much like today, jobs were scarce. In 1935, one of out five Washburn graduates were still unemployed six months after graduation.

Salisbury assured readers that it wasn’t all gloom in those days though, “Marathon dances were exciting…and [students] went sliding or skiing, (with skis strapped to overshoes in some creative way) on the hill at the orphanage which Ramsey Junior High was to replace…On the whole, in spite of the Depression, and the unrest in Europe, and the restrictive, unreasonable attitudes of your parents and teachers, you had a pretty good time at Washburn between 1930 and 1936.”

When Washburn first opened, it served both middle and high school students. By 1931, 2,370 students were attending a school built for 1,500.

In the 1960’s so many students attended Washburn that 5 lunch periods were required and students went to school in shifts with seniors attending hours 0-6 and underclassmen attending hours 2-8. In 1967 the school was expanded significantly to meet the needs of increasing enrollment.

Over the years a number of Washburn High School graduates have gone on to fame in a variety of fields ranging from aeronautics to hip hop.