Maine North High School


Maine North High School was a public secondary school in Des Plaines, Illinois, northwest of Chicago. It was located in unincorporated Maine Township, part of Maine Township High School District 207 which includes Maine East, Maine West, and Maine South High Schools. Opened in 1970, it closed just eleven years later in 1981, and served parts of Des Plaines, Glenview, and Niles.
As student population shrank, the decision came down to closing Maine East or Maine North. Maine East, the oldest school in the district, opened in 1929, but also had considerable numbers of alumni and students with the S.O.S. campaign pushing to keep it open. On November 17, 1980, the Board voted, 4–3, to close Maine North by 1981, citing that it was not only the smallest school, but the least centrally located of the schools in the district. In October, the Board voted to close the school at the end of the 1980–81 school year.
The school was subsequently sold along with the District's administrative building, which had its offices relocated to Maine South High School.

Later uses

After its closing, Maine North was used for location shooting of the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club, filmed in the spring of 1984. The library scenes in the movie were shot in the school gymnasium, where a set was constructed. A plaque downstairs in the building commemorates the movie being shot there.
The school was also used as a training facility for the Chicago Blitz of the short-lived United States Football League and was renamed Blitz Park by head coach George Allen. It also later served as a mortuary college. In 1986, the school's interior was featured in another movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

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