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Why a new version of Central's history was needed

 

 

CLICK HERE for part of the OLD History page from Central's website

 

The Central website, run by the St. Paul Public School system (spps), contains a page devoted

to the history of Central. 

 

Unfortunately, the page was filled with errors and omissions as of January 2007, unusable

by anyone - graduates, current students, researchers, or casual browsers.

 

There were:

• Date errors (1866/1886, 1980/1982).

• Dates out of sequence in the Timeline (1982--->1970--->1987).

• Factual errors ("During World War II, the [St. Paul] streetcars were sold to Mexico City...").

• Photographic errors  (unlabeled pictures, the expanded picture of Central was reversed).

• Identification errors (University Ave was labeled "Lexington", 2 pictures of Minneapolis Central HS

were labeled as St. Paul Central, the picture of the first CHS (Franklin School) was labeled as

the 2nd CHS.

• Organization errors in some places.

• Spelling errors (Rhode scholar, unkown, Haynes/Hayes/Hayneswith, etc).

• Grammatical errors ("...there WAS no educational opportunities...").

• No explanation of the reason for the "Minuteman" moniker.

• A misleading title (Origin of Central) with the article's topics spanning about 140 years.

• Et cetera.

Additionally, the pictures of Central in the main article were small, dark, and of poor quality - even

when expanded to full size.

 

And the expanded (full size) picture of the Central we knew was reversed - a mirror image

of the photograph.

 

                                                          

          Reversed image of Central found on the spps website.  This is the expanded picture

          (after clicking on the thumbnail).  Marshall Ave should be on the left, with Lexington

          on the right. In this picture, Lexington is placed incorrectly on the left.

 

 

                                

                                Correct orientation of Central High School

 

 

 

More examples of photographic/identification errors:

 

                                         

                  Minneapolis Central High School in the 1890s - not St. Paul Central.

                  2 pictures of this school were found on the spps Central website, mis-labeled

                  as being Saint Paul Central High School located at 10th and Minnesota streets

                  in downtown St. Paul. 

 

 

 

                           

                             University Avenue, found labeled as Lexington Parkway.

                      Note the pedestrian safety islands, the Capitol dome in the background, etc.

                      This is University Avenue, looking East towards downtown St. Paul.

 

 

                                            

                                                   Mis-identified and Reversed

                   Franklin School - the original home of Central High School located at

                   Broadway and 10th - was mis-identified and labeled as "7jackson.jpg"

                   which is the Lindeke Building or the location of the 2nd school at 7th and Jackson

                   in downtown St. Paul.  Additionally, the image is reversed.

 

A revised version of that web page clearly needed to be made. Therefore, I have created a

corrected and improved version of their History page, placed it on our website for our own use,

and have been in touch with their webmaster, exchanging many e-mails.

 

Many of the errors were evidently due to incorrect information supplied to the webmaster by spps.

Their webmaster has now corrected most or all of the errors and copied most of my version

which I offered to him.

 

Some of the errors existed in the BUILDINGS section which I cannot correct, but have now

largely or completely been fixed..

 

The spps History page of Central served as the foundation for our first history page

on this website, and I'm grateful that spps created their History page.

 

Dave Morton

April, 2007