History on Pine County Schools
The following was taken from the book "Pine County
& Its Memories" published by Jim Cordes in 1989.
The first public school in Pine
County
was built in Chengwatana Villagein
1868, in section 26, R21. In 1894, the
district was
reorganized and the
school was moved about three miles northeast to the Hustletown area, in
section
19, on land donated by Henry
Kruse. Miss Agnes Glanville was the first teacher
in Hustletown.
Hustletown
School District
1 …..Hustletown is a community six and
one half miles east of Pine City.
It has a
church, a cemetery, and a school, District No. 1,
whose original
building was moved in from Chengwatana
Village.
District number 2 was organized in 1869.,
This
building, owned by the Brennan Lumber Co. was also a dance
hall. The building
was remodeled and moved several years later. A two-story frame building
was
erected on the
present school site and in 1893 a large two-story
brick building
was built which was completely destroyed by the fire.
The next school house was
a two-room building at which there were morning and evening sessions
due to
lack of space.
Another high school building was constructed in1911 and later
demolished and a new one built in 1936.
District 32, the Gebhart
School,
was established on August 30,
1898,
in section 29. Named for a local
landowner, the school was razed in 1955.
District 35, the Friesland
School,
located in section 1, was organized on November 16, 1898. This school in
later years
was used for special
education. It closed in 1980.
District 38, the Weser
School, located in section 8, was
established as a school district on July 10, 1899.
Named for a local
landowner, this school closed in 1965. The original building burned
District 60, known as “Number
60” was located in section 14. Organized on October 5, 1903, it closed
in
1951.
The building was moved to be used as a granary.
Chengwatana
School District
1, The first public school in Pine
County was built
in Chengwatana Village
in
1868, in section 26, R21,.
In 1894, the district was reorganized and the school was
moved about three miles
northeast to
the Hustletown area, in section 19, on
land donated by Henry Kruse. Miss Agnes Glanville was the first
teacher in
Hustletown.
District
Number 69, known as the Chengwatana or Wanous
School,
was organized on July 11, 1905.
Wanous is a local
family name. Constructed in section 14, R21, this building has been
moved to Pine City
and
restored as a schoolhouse
museum. An attempt was made to place the school on the National
Register of
Historic
Places, but because it was removed from its original site it did not
qualify. Some of the original District 69 furnishings
are there today, but many
items were donated from other school districts.
Meadow
Lawn School
District 73,
was organized on July 9, 1906.
It was constructed in section 10, R20, and
named for the Meadow Lawn area of
the township. This school was demolished in about 1980. The area known
as
Meadow Lawn
seems to be that part of the township lying east of the Meadow Lawn
schoolhouse.
The Midway or Kurzhal
School,
District Number 98, was located in section 21, R20. It was
organized on
June 14, 1913.
The building is no
longer there.
District 109, the Chapin or Clover
Hill School,
was organized on March 20,
1916.
The building was
demolished in the late 1970’s. It was in
section 6, R20.
District 55 School, was organized on November 25, 1902. The
schoolhouse stood in the
southwester corner of
section 17.
District 21 at Willow
River
was organized on July 14, 1890.
The first building had one room. May Wood was the
first teacher. In 1894 a
second classroom was added. That year the teachers were R. H.
Blankenship and
Neil Dunn.
The original schoolhouse burned in 1900. That year a
new T-shaped
schoolhouse was put up and a second floor
was added
later. In 1920 the brick
schoolhouse was built.
The Rutledge or Pine
Grove School,
District 6, was organized
on February 4, 1878.
District 9, in Pine
City Township,
the West Rock
Lake
or Connaker School,
located in section 5, R21,
was named for the community and an adjacent
landowner. The district was organized on January 3, 1882,
and a
building was put up that same year. At a later date
the old school house was replaced by a new one at the same
location, it closed
in 1957.
The Hinze or East Side
School
was organized on February 10,
1908.
Originally known as the Rock
Lake
School, the building was
put up in
about 1893 and was part of District 9, in
1908 it
became District 77.
The Milburn or Engler
School was organized as District 33 on August 30, 1898. The
building is in section 32.
Eleanor Ploeger, who
taught here, recalls that the school closed in 1970.
Sauter
School District 53, was
organized on August 16, 1902.
Various maps show it in different locations in
section 4, T38, R21. The school
was named for a nearby landowner, F. Sauter.
District 99, the Spring Valley
or Shuey School, served the Milburn area.
This district was organized on
October 27, 1913 and
had its building in section 20, T38,N,
R20. This school was moved to highway 70 to be used
as a private residence.
Pine
City
grade school, District 3,
was organized some time before 1871. The school was
built on the present site of the
village hall. For a time this first building
was the social center of the village, serving as a church and Sunday
school
building. When vacated, it was moved to the fair grounds to be used for
4-H
Club activities. The wood frame
schoolhouse was replaced in 1893 by a fine
large brick structure named the Webster
School.
In 1903 the building
was
enlarged by adding two wings. Pine Country’s first high school
was established
here in 1904, a separate high
school building was constructed in 1914. The
Webster school was completely destroyed by fire on January 12, 1939
and was rebuilt in 1942.
Rock
Creek School
District 4: The Rock Creek
Village, or Roosevelt School,
was organized as District
4 on August
8, 1874.
Dale Martinson recorded for us that the first District 4
schoolhouse was wood-frame and
two-story. The
building plans for this
schoolhouse were prepared by N.M. Stranberg. The higher grades were up,
the
lower ones down. This school
burned in 1923 and a new one was built in 1924.
The most recent schoolhouse is a
brick building now privately owned.
District 15 is shown on the
Gustafson school district map to be in section
14, but is covered in the Pine
City
Township history. This
school
district was established on March
12, 1885. The building was constructed in section
11, T38N, R21W.
McKay
School District
23 was organized on September
26, 1893
and named for a neighboring family in section
35. This school was located near
the Government Road.
East Rock Creek Community was the home for three school
districts. District
13, the Lowell or Calvin
School, was established on May 17, 1884, with a
building in
section 30, R20. The Pleasant
Prairie School
District
28, was organized on July 12, 1897.
Fred Vacinek and his father Vaslav before him,
attended this school. The first
schoolhouse was moved in 1928, the second one
originally had no bell tower, though one was added later.
In the early years a
wood stove heated the schoolhouse, later, an oil heater was
substituted. One
District 28 scholar recalls that
the school closed in 1968 and that the
students were then hauled to Pine
Cityschools.
District 28
schoolhouse was auctioned off and
served as a granary on
the Adolph Plessel farm.
District 82, the Deer
Valley School,
was organized on June 9, 1908.
The building was in
section 22.
The first township schoolhouse was built by the
Martin-Laird Lumber Company
for the benefit of its employee’s
children in
about 1880. This school District, Number 8, was organized on February 7, 1880. The
building was
destroyed by the Hinckley
fire.
The Shady Oak School District Number 25,
was a log
schoolhouse built on land donated by the railroad in
section 36. This district
was organized on October 21,
1894.
The school, located on the Government Road,
had as its
first board, J.B. Butler, Clerk. Joseph Ouradnik, Treasurer, and
John Sherrry, Director.
District 31 was organized on August 29, 1898,
with a building in the southwest corner of section 17.
The building
was torn down in 1912 when the district was consolidated with Brook
Park.
The Beroun
Jefferson School, was organized as District 34 on November 16, 1898.
Origianlly a log building,
constructed on
railroad granted land in 1895, this building burned in 1939. A
frame schoolhouse replaced the original
building in 1900. The two-room brick
schoolhouse was built in 1925 at a cost of $13,000 to replace the wood
structure. The wood frame
building was just east of the later school side.
The Greenwood
or Cabak School,
District 45, located in
section 15, was organized on January
8, 1901, and named for
an adjacent land owner.
District 48, the Wilson
School,
was organized as a district on July
8, 1901, with a building in section 32.
School District
81, the Ludenbach or Grand View
School,served
the northwest part of the township.
Located in section 7 it was
organized on June 9, 1908.
West
Rock School
District 12,
is located in section 24 on the State Highwaymap.
Originally, it was one half
mile west of this site. The district
was
organized on February 16, 1884.
Royalton
School District
7 was known as the Brunswick Road, Royalton or Bobtail
School. It was
located on the
Brunswick Road
in section 4. This school district was
organized on March 1, 1878,
classes began in 1879.
The building closed in about a 1949 and was razed by
Andrew Bernecker.
The following information about the Clint, Greeley,
Hay Creek and District 63 schools
was furnished by
Township
resident Duane
Swanson.
The Clint schoolhouse was
located in section 29. The residents of the Clint
Community during the 1880’s
recognized the need for a district school within
easy walking distance. The Danewood school
in Chisago
County
was too far away. George
Neilson organized a petition to the County officials for such a
district and on
November 22,
1884, Pine County
School District
14
was detached from District 7. School for the nineteen
children was held in
the Erick Selberg home. In 1885 a log building, 16 feet by 22 feet,
with four
small windows, was constructed by
the residents on Henry Olson’s land. In 1892,
the district purchased a site further west and built a
frame building…
Throughout the first decade of the twentieth century the school
district
officers patiently set aside
funds for the construction of a new schoolhouse.
In 1916, a brick structure was built on the original site. The building
faced
south, with a full set of windows on the east. A large library and a
full
basement with fuel room and recreation
room were contained in the school.. By the 1940’s the district had decided
to transport its
students to nearby Braham
School.
On June 12, 1951,
the
district was officially consolidated into the Braham independent
system. The
building was torn down and the
brick sold.
District 17 is the Greeley
School.
Organized on January 3, 1888,
it was built in section 27 on land donated by
Mr. Wahlberg.
District 41, known as the Hay Creek or Hickory
School,
was organized on July 9, 1900.
District 63, according to Duane Swanson, was
organized on January 5, 1903.
The school was located north of
the Snake River. The
students were eventually
transported to Grasston Village
in Kanabec County.
The Stumne or Oak
Hill School
District 124,
was established in section 1 and was organized on September
26, 1927. Named for a local family,
this wood
framed school house was torn down in the 1960s.
There are records of five rural school building
locations in the township of
Windemere.
The earliest township
schoolhouse
was District 11, the Blomskog
School . It was located
on the
section line dividing sections 9 and 10
between Sturgeon
Lake and the
County road. District
11 was organized on October
13, 1883.
The schoolhouse was built in 1888
by the A. O. Nelson Company for $85.00
As more families arrived in the township,
District 11 was divided
into four
districts designated 11A, 11B, 11C and
11D. District
11A School
was built in about 1895 on Island
Lake
in section 8 by Fred Swanson. Known as Island
Lakes School,
it operated until consolidation, then the
students
attended Moose Lake,
Willow River
or “C” School,
which remained
open until the district voted to merge with the Moose Lake
Schools.
The District 11B schoolhouse was
built in about 1895 on the southeast shore
of Sturgeon Lakeby
Fred
Swanson. In
1910 it was moved to “Streets Corner” in section 22 where
it was known forever after as the Street
School.
This school was closed,
sold, torn down and used as lumber on the Clyde Johnson property.
District 11C, the Lake Eleven
schoolhouse, was built in section 15 by Nels
Lund who also worked on the
Blomskog Church.
This schoolhouse burned in 1938 and was replaced by a new building
which would
later serve as the “New
Windemere Town
Hall.”
District 11D School, known as “D” or
Sand School,
was built in section 29
near Rush Lake.
This school was
closed in 1933
and sold to Rudolph Anderson to be used as a
barn.
Copyright
© 2012 Pine County Genealogical Society