Wm. H. Smiley Junior High School

Smiley Junior High School opened in 1928 with a student body of 350. Smiley is named after Emeritus DPS Superintendent William H. Smiley, PhD. A Harvard University graduate, teacher of Latin and the classics, he was a principal (1892 to 1912) and superintendent of Denver Public Schools (1912 to 1924). Today, a portrait bust of him holds an honored place in the front hall of Smiley.

Smiley is located at 26th Ave. and Holly St. The building structure is a Tudor style designed by the architect, George H. Williamson. Williamson also designed East High School (Colfax and Detroit), the familiar Daniel & Fisher Tower on the16th Street Mall and Teller Elementary School. Smiley shares some of the same Tudor architectural features with the University of Colorado Mackey Auditorium, such as the bricks set in manila and light terracotta and the octagon towers.

Smiley began a new era in the 1970s that would place it at the center of the educational equality debate in the United States. In the U.S. Supreme Court case, Keyes v School District No. 1, Denver, petitioners sought desegregation of the Park Hill area schools. Gradually Smiley Middle School’s student numbers declined as new schools opened such as Gove Middle School, Martin Luther King Middle School, Rachel B Noel Middle School and Park Hill K-8.

Photo credit: OAHP, History Colorado

2540 Holly Street
Denver, CO 80207