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Famous people's places / Highland Park

Highland Park Community High School

Closed – archive entry · 2015

Highland Park's public high school on Woodward Avenue, where pitcher Billy Pierce threw six shutouts as a teenager in the early 1940s, closed in 2015 and demolished the following year.

01 / The story of this place

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Highland Park's public high school stood on Woodward Avenue for generations, serving the small, historically industrial city surrounded by Detroit. Future major-league pitcher Billy Pierce starred here in the early 1940s, throwing six shutouts in a single 1944 season on his way to a two-decade career, mostly with the Chicago White Sox, that made him a seven-time All-Star. The school later took the name Highland Park Community High School as the district consolidated its buildings. Declining enrollment and Highland Park's long financial crisis forced its closure in 2015, and after a lawsuit over the demolition contract, bulldozers leveled the building by late 2016. The site on Woodward Avenue has sat as a vacant lot since.

  1. Billy Pierce, later a seven-time MLB All-Star, threw six shutouts here in 1944
  2. Highland Park's public high school for generations, on Woodward Avenue
  3. Closed in 2015 amid declining enrollment and the district's finances
  4. Demolished by late 2016; the site remains a vacant lot

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Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25

An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.

03 / Events

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