Norris School Dist. history

Union School resumed classes on May 7, 1860 with Goldrick and an assistant, Miss Miller.

Always characterized as sensitive and intelligent, Firth was nevertheless drawn to more rugged work, entering the Institute of Technology in Boston in 1865 and later working in an engineer’s office in Boston.

Tax receipts were not enough to keep the school going but on May 10, 1866, the district was financially able to rent space in a brick building at 18th and Larimer Streets, site of the Windsor Hotel then owned by J.H. Kehler.

In the beginning, both black and white students attended school in the rented school space, but in 1868, people in the district requested separate schools and rental space was found to house the black students in a building at 16th and Market Streets.

The school moved February 2, 1869 to the African Baptist Church on Arapahoe between 21st and 22nd Streets.

After returning briefly to New England to help out his father at a railroad office, he returned to Kansas in 1870 to work on the new Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston railroad line, but in June of 1870 he contracted typhoid fever.

The position Superintendent was not created until 1871.

The basement was leased on January 11, 1872 and with this space the district now had three rented buildings – Kehler School (at the Colorado Seminary), the school for the Blacks and the Baptist Dugout.

21 was established around September 8, 1873.

A second school was built on Stout and 28th Streets with a completion date of March, 1874.

Between 1868 and 1871 the school district obtained additional lots in the block and ground breaking began on October 30, 1871. It was a day of celebration in Denver as students of the first graduating class received their diplomas in 1877.

The town was incorporated on January 20, 1879.

By 1881 Firth was said to have been one of the largest grain markets on the A&N, shipping out some 700 carloads of grain and livestock.

Ashland school soon outgrew its space and a larger brick building ws completed in 1882.

More buildings were added to Bryant School in 1883, but the continuous student growth necessitated the building of Boulevard school and a very small Grand View School that same year.

However only the west wing of the building was finished and it would not be until 1889 before the main section and the east wing would be built.

Following the opening of Villa Park School, a one-room frame school was built in 1892 at 9th and Irving Streets.

1. On February 28, 1903, the Colorado State Supreme Court declared the Rush Amendment valid.

(The following article is taken from the November, 1909 issue of The Firth Echo.

In 1916 a brick school was built and the 12th grade added.

In the 1920’s many schools were built just for juniors high schools such as Skinner and Cole.

By 1926, Denver had nine junior high schools.

The first public school building became part of a larger office building, the seven-story Club Building, which was torn down in 1955.

In 1970, the United States District Court ordered busing for racial balancing within the schools which meant students spent considerable time riding school busses.

(Much of the following information is taken from A History of Lancaster County, by Elinor Brown, 1971.)