About Us

Levi P. Dodge Middle School is named after Levi Parker Dodge, a longtime school board member for Farmington Public Schools and education advocate in Dakota County. The school facility was built in 1993 and has always housed middle school students. With the opening of Farmington High School in 2009, the secondary grade levels were reconfigured to open two 6-8 middle schools at Dodge Middle School and Boeckman Middle School. Dodge Middle School primarily serves students that have attended Akin Road, North Trail, and Riverview Elementary Schools. 

About Levi P. Dodge
Levi P. Dodge was born on May 25, 1839 in New Hampshire. As a youth, Levi worked as a farm laborer. During the winter months he attended public schools. When he was 18 years old, he enrolled at the New London Academy in New London, New Hampshire. There he began the study of medicine. His education was interrupted in 1861 when the Civil War began. He served the Union in General Burnside’s Expedition as a hospital steward and assistant surgeon. 

Dodge served as a school board member from 1866 until his death in 1893. He insisted that Farmington’s school teachers be college educated. As well as his work with the schools, Dodge established the Farmington Library in 1871 and was its first president. It was the first public library in Dakota County.
 
Dr. Levi Parker Dodge died on September 29, 1893.  He was 54 years old. 
 
About Us
After the Civil War, he resumed the study of medicine and graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. On October 1, 1865, he married Henrietta Shackelford of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and ten days later moved to Farmington, Minnesota.

As Farmington’s first physician, Dr. Dodge served the community as chairman of the Board of Health for many years. He was a member of the Dakota County Medical Society, the State Medical Society and the American Medical Society.