Dennison High School

On October 23, 1927, a ceremony was held for the laying of the cornerstone for the Dennison High School building. It opened in the fall of 1928 and was called "Angel's Castle" in honor of school superintendent William Hiram Angel. Designed by J.K. Griffin, an architect from Canton, Ohio, it reflected the Collegiate Gothic style popular for school and college buildings in the early twentieth century. The entrance towers emphasized its prominent site above street level, and the building became an important visual landmark visible from downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. It retained its location, materials, design, and association and conveyed the early twentieth century ideals of education that its original design was intended to inspire. Inside were spaces for manual training and household arts in addition to traditional classrooms. In the 1930s, it also hosted the Primrose School, a special school within a school for special needs students, a program that lasted until 1954. Its most architecturally significant interior space was the original auditorium, whose first-floor and balcony seating faced the stage and, beyond that, the gymnasium floor and bleachers, allowing concerts, plays, basketball tournaments, and Miss Clayland pageants to be held there. After school consolidation in 1965, the building became a junior high and then an intermediate school. On February 1, 2006, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior.

Dennison, Ohio · United States