This former school is one of two to bear the name of Civil War general and lighthouse architect Orlando M. Poe.
Poe was born in Navarre, Ohio, on March 7, 1832, and would graduate from West Point in 1856. He would serve throughout the Civil War and was brevetted as brigadier general in 1865. After the war, he would join the U.S. Board of Lighthouse Commissioners, serving as secretary and designing a number of lighthouses around the Great Lakes. Among his works that still survive are the South Manitou Island Light in Leland, Mich. (1872), the Au Sable Point Light Station at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (1874), the Spectacle Reef Lighthouse in Lake Huron (1874), and the Lighthouse Supply Depot at 3866 Wight St. in Detroit (1874). He also is credited with designing the Poe Lock at the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.
Following his death on Oct. 2, 1895, in Detroit, a school board member suggested that a proposed new school in the Woodbridge neighborhood be named in his honor.
This school was needed to relieve congestion at the Jefferson, Irving and Tilden schools because a number of homes had been built in the area around this time. The land at Lysander Street and Trumbull Avenue was bought July 15, 1896, for $4,080, or about $160,000 in 2025 value, when adjusted for inflation. A two-story, brick school designed by the firm Malcomson & Higginbotham was built there and opened later that year. Its initial enrollment was 300 pupils. Its cost was $23,413 (or about $921,000 in 2025).
As Poe School became overcrowded, surrounding houses were torn down in order to build a large addition in 1922 for a cost of $310,000 (about $6.1 million in 2026 valuation). This new school - designed by the firm Malcomson, Higginbotham & Palmer - was attached to the older building by a passageway, and brought Poe’s capacity to 960 students.
By the 1950s, many of Woodbridge’s large homes had been divided into rooming houses, and the construction of the Jeffries Housing Project led to a surge in enrollment at Poe. In 1952, the school had 957 students; just four years later, it had 1,856, nearly double. This led to a new school, Edmonson, to be built next door in 1957, reducing Poe’s enrollment to 1,100.
The opening of Edmonson led to the Citizens Advisory Committee to recommend that the 1896 Poe building be razed in order to for the land to be used as a playground. The old Poe fell around 1968.
By 1985, the building was home to the Poe Developmental School, which catered to teaching young Detroiters with developmental challenges. It would later be renamed the Poe Trainable Center in the 1990s.
However, continuing declines in both city population and district enrollment saw the Detroit Public Schools close a number of buildings in the 2000s. On Feb. 11, 2005, DPS announced that 34 schools would close, including Poe, which would be merged with the Wingert School at the end of the school year and their students relocated to the Keidan School at 4441 Collingwood St. The move was part of an effort to save the district $1.5 million and followed an enrollment drop of 11,500 students districtwide in 2005. At the time of its closure, there were 162 students enrolled at Poe.
After Poe closed in 2005, the building was used as the Woodbridge Community Center from 2007 until at least 2015. The center worked to improve community literacy and offered life management coaching, as well as sports like soccer, basketball, flag football and baseball. It is unclear why the center was shuttered, but it’s likely that it was tied to funding.
Poe is currently vacant and suffering from flooding caused by a burst pipe. However, the building still has power, thanks to it sharing a power plant with Edmonson next door.