I attended a meeting at the school several weeks back where
a pair of design schemes was presented to the La Farge Schools facilities
committee to ponder. After the two
plans, which featured various new additions to the present school buildings in
a variety of forms, were presented and discussed, more information was
presented to those gathered about the costs for such construction. The total projected cost of ten-plus million
dollars for the construction of the new school buildings sent more than one
pair of eyebrows arching towards the ceiling of the high school library.
At a later
school board meeting there was discussion about the demolition of the 1901
schoolhouse building to facilitate some of the plans for construction of other
buildings. Tearing down the old school
landmark has triggered some opposition from preservationists and others who
want to save the historic building.
The whole
exercise currently being undertaken by the local school district is one
originated to look at future building needs for the school. What will the district need for buildings in
order to function ten or twenty years from now?
Looking down the road into the future can be a pretty tricky business
for small school districts like La Farge in this day of open enrollment,
voucher programs and declining state aids.
It is a difficult task made even more strenuous due to these times of
shrinking enrollments, local tax levy limits and other constraints on public
schools in Wisconsin.
Perhaps some history of previous
attempts to construct new school buildings in La Farge might aid this process a
little. After all, it is much easier to
look backward than to try to peer very far into the future. So let’s travel back to some other times when
folks were considering whether to build some new school buildings in this little
town along the Kickapoo.
In 1894, the newly minted hamlet of
La Farge (the place known as DeJean’s Corners had only had the “La Farge” name
for a year as the La Farge Post Office had been moved from Sam Green’s house
north to “The Corners” in 1893) needed a new schoolhouse. The old log schoolhouse constructed in 1880
by Thomas DeJean and located a block from the original corners (at the present
site of the post office) was bursting at the seams. As more and more families moved to the La
Farge area during that last decade of the 19th Century, the need for
a new school was evident. By 1894, the
leaders of La Farge were ready to build a new school and grand plans were
envisioned for the construction of the best schoolhouse in the Kickapoo Valley. To help make that happen, La Farge reached
out to its neighbors to the north at Seelyburg to see if they would want to
join in the venture.
Seelyburg also had an old log
schoolhouse (located at the mouth of Plum Run where it joins the Kickapoo
River) that had seen its better days. It
was also overflowing with students at that time. However, as the leaders of Seelyburg were
approached about the idea of a new combined school by their downriver
neighbors, there was some trepidation towards the move. Several Seelyburg businesses including
Brown’s Photography Studio and Millard’s General Store had recently relocated
to La Farge. Other families who had
lived in Seelyburg had left their homes there and moved to higher ground in La
Farge (mainly fleeing the near constant flooding that was starting to occur in
Seelyburg at that time). So Seelyburg residents
were a little leery about partnering with La Farge on this new schoolhouse
venture.
Another problem with the merger of
the two schools was the location of the new school. The leaders of La Farge were demanding that
the new building, a two-story structure that would be a fully graded school
(housing students in grades 1 through 8), should be located near their hamlet’s
growing Main Street. La Farge argued
that their location was superior for drawing the most students and that there
was plenty of good land available for a site on which to build the new
school. Seelyburg had few building sites
to compare to La Farge, unless it was on the hills north of the old mill town. These land parcels, though, would be far from
centrally located and thus, of not much serious consideration. Seelyburg residents, already chafing at the
thought of losing their school to the newer community to the south, balked at
the thought of having the new school located so far away in La Farge. It appeared as though the idea of the joint
school venture was not going to happen.
At some point in these
negotiations, the Vernon County School Superintendent entered the discussion
and helped broker a compromise for the joining of the two districts. It was probably pointed out that neither
district had a sufficient amount of students to warrant a larger fully graded
school, but that the two district’s combined enrollment would foster such a
move. The tax base for the two combined
districts would also make the construction of a new schoolhouse more
financially feasible.
The location of the new school
building still seemed a major sticking point until Dred Bean offered a
compromise. The founding father of The
Corners offered to sell to the proposed new combined school district a parcel
of land in the north pasture on his farm, just across the road from Bean’s
Grove (now La Farge’s Village Park).
This proposed site was centrally located between the two communities and
also was located along the main road that connected both. The location satisfied most of the people of
Seelyburg, since the new school was going to be very near the south side of
their hamlet. La Farge could accept the
location proposed by Bean, even though it was nearly a half-mile from its busy
main intersection. The ambitious
southern hamlet expected their town to expand north to the school in a short
time anyway, so it would be in La Farge soon enough.
So, the new Joint School District
#15 of La Farge was created and a two-story wooden schoolhouse was built in
Dred Bean’s north pasture, opening in November of 1895 for students of La
Farge, Seelyburg and the surrounding areas.
The new schoolhouse was built with the intention of being the best and
word of the new school at La Farge quickly spread throughout the area. The new school was a two-story wooden
structure with double sized classrooms on both floors. Equipment and desks from both of the former
schools was moved to the new one, while the newest supplies were added to make
the new schoolhouse the best in the Kickapoo Valley.
In 1896, the county superintendent
of schools said, “The La Farge schoolhouse is the finest in the county outside
of Viroqua and I doubt if any village in the state has a nicer school
house.” The new school was soon the
pride of the little town on the Kickapoo.
It also became a boon for the growing town as students were drawn to the
new school and its enhanced educational opportunities. Being a “fully graded school” meant that students
could now complete the 8th grade at La Farge. The curriculum for the eight grades was
taught in a seven-month school year stretching from September through
April. Graduates of the new La Farge
School could then move on to high school studies at other places that offered
that curriculum (Viroqua, Hillsboro and Richland Center were the nearest). La Farge’s 8th grade graduates
were also qualified to teach at rural schools, an especially appealing
opportunity for young women of that time.
It appeared that La Farge was educationally prepared for a long future
of growth with their new schoolhouse. Or
were they?
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