Lincoln High School (Warren)

01 / The story of this place

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Lincoln High School is the high school of Van Dyke Public Schools, a small district in the southern part of Warren, close to the Eight Mile Road border with Detroit. The district goes back to 1879, and the present building went up in the early 1950s: its cornerstone was laid in 1951 and it was finished in 1953, with a pool added in 1958 and an auditorium and stadium in 1972. For a decade, from 1954 to 1964, the building also hosted the first classes of what grew into Macomb Community College. Its most famous student is Eminem. Young Marshall Mathers bounced between homes and schools, and at Lincoln in the late 1980s he failed ninth grade three times because of skipped classes and bad grades, then dropped out at 17. English was the one subject he loved, and he was already rapping. Pro wrestler Danhausen also went here. The Abes, named for Abraham Lincoln, still play Center Line every year for the Brown Jug, a football rivalry dating to 1947.

1. Built 1951–1953 for Van Dyke Public Schools in south Warren
2. Eminem failed ninth grade here three times and left at 17
3. Macomb Community College held its first classes here, 1954–1964
4. Teams are the Abes, after Abraham Lincoln
5. Brown Jug football rivalry with Center Line since 1947