Luther L Wright High School - Hematite Yearbook (Ironwood, MI)

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FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN IRONWOOD 19

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LUTHER L. WRIGHT HIGH SCHOOL

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HISTORICAL SKETCH CHOOL district No. I of the township of Ironwood, then in Ontonagon County, was organized in the winter of 1885-86. The first district meeting was held at the Webb House, now the Walker House. Nels Vroman, D. Roach, and Patrick Dornan were elected trustees. The meeting determined upon the erection of a school building, voted to issue bonds and made the necessary contracts. The building on West Vaughn Street, which used to be occupied as the Salvation Army barracks, was the first school building erected in the township of Ironwood. Toward the last of March, 1886, Miss Gertrude Fitzsimmons, now Mrs. O. E. Karste, began to teach school in the new building, thus founding the educational system of Ironwood. The building which then stood on the south side of Vaughn Street was unfinished. It was lathed, but not plastered. There was neither platform nor steps; the pupils and teachers climbed into the front door of the building by the aid of an inverted barrel. There were no sidewalks, and no apparent street. Miss Fitzsimmons only succeeded in getting to the school house dry, shod through the swamp which then occupied the present business part of Ironwood, by jumping from one stump to another. There were about forty pupils present, among them being Miss Margaret Hartigan, now Mrs. Bush, of the class of 94; but they had no books, and neither did they have any for about a month. A few second-hand books of various kinds were gathered together by diligent search and inquiry among the early settlers, but the books were few and poor. Still, by changing them about from hand to hand, quite a considerable work was accomplished. Miss Fitzsimmons taught until the following June. During the summer the town grew rapidly, and in the fall of 1886 Mr. O. H. Carus, a graduate of the Michigan State Normal School, was chosen as principal, with Miss Ella Atkinson and Miss Margaret McVichie as assistants. The wonderful growth of the town during the winter of ’86 and spring of ’87, made the little building on Vaughn street entirely insufficient, and it was proposed to erect a new building. At the annual meeting of 1887, Messrs. W. L. Pierce, J. H. D. Stevens, Capt. Dan Sullivan, Andrew' Johnson, and E. B. Williams were elected as trustees. At this meeting held July I I, 1887, the proposition to bond the district for $15,000 for building purposes was carriedr hd a new building ordered. I was engaged as superintendent in July, 1887, and came to Ironwood in August of that year. The Central School building was erected on its present site, and finished ready for occupancy in September, I 888. So little did the then inhabitants of Ironwood appreciate the great natural resources of Iron-wood, that the board was severely criticised for erectng so large a building, many thinking that it would never all be used. In the winter of 1887-88, the Jessieville School was built and occupied. The annual meeting of 1 890 voted to build three new school buildings, now known as the Ashland, Norrie, and North Schools was built and occupied. The annual meeting of 1892 voted to build the buildings, now known as the Newport and Froebel Schools. Since that time the Aurora School was erected, about 1898. The Luther L. Wright School was completed in 1900, and since that time we have built the Domestic Science School, the New North School, the Manual Training School, and the new North Pabst School. In the twenty years which have elapsed since September, 1887, the Ironwood public schools have grown from ten teachers with six hundred pupils to eighty teachers with 2,900 pupils. From this time on the history of the school of Ironwood must be more or less of a personal narrative, and I hope the reader will pardon me if I speak in the first person. When I came to Ironwood twenty-four years ago, on the first Monday of September, 1887, six hundred children presented themselves for admission. We had one frame building with a room down stairs that would accomodate forty-five pupils, and one upstairs reached by a ladder-like outside stair-case, which, with crowding, would hold as 20