The 1901 School
When the school board of trustees met on April 2, 1901, it was to consider a written request (petition) by nine freeholders. It stated:
To Albert Glasow,
Clerk of School District #5
County of Pine, State of Minnesota
Sir
You are hereby requested to call a Special School Meeting of the above district for the purpose of considering the voting of bonds for the construction
10
THE 1901 SCHOOL
of a School House in the Village of Sanc District.
/s/s
J. H. Hay
C. Heisler
L. Eaton
L. Rankin
Angus Gunn
N. Mireault
S. H. Brownlee
Chas. Reinholdson
J. M. Ingraham
The board instructed the clerk to po such a meeting to be held April 15t
At the special meeting held the 15th, Peter Peterson called the meeting to order. A. Parish was elected moderator and William Aiken, Sr. acted as clerk. The citizens voted on the question of whether or not to make application to the state for $12,000 in bonds at four percent interest. The vote was 24 in favor of the application and one against.
Another special meeting was held May 5th.
Available records do not show what transpired in the interim, but it seems likely that it had been learned that $12,000 would not be sufficient and also, that the interest rate would have to be higher.
Another vote was taken, this time on the question of whether or not the school should issue bonds in the amount of $20,000 at four and one-half percent.
The vote was 25 to zero in favor of the bonds.
In June, the clerk was instructed to advertise for bids from contractors. The plans and specifications were available at the office of the architect, F. B.
Kendrick, and at the school. This meeting was June 3rd and the board would accept bids until June 25th. When the bids were opened, the lowest bidder was O. H. Olson of Stillwater. All bids were rejected, but Mr. Olson's bid of $19,548 was held for further consideration. At their meeting on July 16th, the board members voted to " ...sign the
contract in duplicate between the Trustees and O.
H. Hanson Contractor the latter to Build the New School House for the sum of according to plans and specifications." (The sum was left blank in the minutes.)
Little is known of F. B. Kendrick, the architect of the 1901 school. His offices were in Minneapolis, and he was known to residents of Sandstone in that he had done some work in town previously. A 1898
Courier referred to him: "
"...for the first time the
spring high water did not in the least effect the dam. Last summer Architect Kendrick planned some improvements to strengthen the racy old structure so far as he could and the work seems to have had a very effectual effect." Later, in 1909, he would be called upon by the school board to estimate the fire damage in the building he had
designed.
Construction must have begun shortly after the contract was awarded to Mr. Hanson. A dearth of information prevents many specifics. School board minutes during the construction contain few references. No Couriers from 1899 to 1904 are known to exist, and any letters from those years disappeared long ago. Therefore, reconstruction of those years is done primarily from tidbits of information, hearsay, and inference.
The Village Council (President John A. Smith,
from 1901 to 1959.
The 1896 schoolhouse served as the Sandstone Village Hall
Recorder George McNeil, Treasurer F. L. Dennie, and Trustees E. G. Pegg, W. Jesmer, and Louis Edstrom) presented its bid for the purchase of the two-story school house. The board accepted the council's bid of $1,000 at the June T, 1901 meeting, with the stipulation that the village move the building and assume all risk of damage. The school was used as the Village Hall until 1959 at which time it was torn down to make room for the new hall.
By the time the contract was signed with O. H.
Hanson on July 16, 1901, the old school house had probably been moved by the city. Construction must have begun sometime in mid-summer.
Information here is sketchy. The clerk recorded minutes of only three meetings from August to the next spring and there is only one reference to the school building. That was the October 22nd meeting when the bids for the heating and ventilation system were opened. Moore Heating Company with a bid of $3297 was the second lowest bidder and was given the contract to "
'...complete the works".
Members of the school board of trustees in 1901-02 were Peter Peterson, Director; Albert L.
Glasow, Clerk; and Henry P. Webb, Treasurer.
The architect, F. B. Kendrick, had designed the building to be constructed of native sandstone. The building is said to be resting on solid bedrock, which would explain the fine condition of the exterior walls.
Each course, or layer, of stone block was cut t