Claresholm's First School - 1903 - Claresholm, AB - Dated Architectural Structures Multifarious on Waymarking.com

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Claresholm's First School - 1903 - Claresholm, AB

in Dated Architectural Structures Multifarious

Posted by:  T0SHEA

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Now a part of the collection of the Claresholm & District Museum, this little wood frame schoolhouse resides on their grounds beside the railway depot.

Originally built on or near the corner of 52 Avenue and 3 Street East, this little schoolhouse has had to endure two moves, the two moves occurring about three quarters of a century apart.

Due to rapid growth of the town a new and much larger school was built in Claresholm in 1907, with this one being moved 18 miles to the northeast to serve as a rural school. In 1939 it was closed and later returned to Claresholm to become part of the museum.

Claresholm’s First School

Claresholm’s original one-room school, built in January 1903 on land a couple of blocks east of the station, was donated to the museum by the Willow Creek School Division and relocated to the museum site in 1967. This small school had served Claresholm for just a few years. Claresholm grew rapidly, from one family in 1901 to about eight hundred people in 1905, and a much larger school was soon needed.

In 1907 the new Claresholm Public School was completed on Second Street West and 55th Avenue. It was an impressive three story brick building, with two floors of classrooms and an auditorium on the third floor. The little one-room school was then sold to the Prairieville School District, and moved to a site eighteen miles northeast of Claresholm. It served as the Prairieville School until school centralization in 1939.

Like all rural schools, it was also used by the community for church services and as a community hall, uses that continued until it was donated to the Claresholm Museum. Today, Claresholm’s first school, appropriately furnished, re-creates the atmosphere of an early rural school.
From the Claresholm & District Museum