Schools in Pleasant Township
Prepared by Pat
VanDierendonck
Stillwell Schools
There is not a simple answer to
that question as there were traveling schools and several very small schools
throughout the township. The first large school was built in 1896. In 1906 when
half of the structure was moved and the two halves were made into homes. One of
the two buildings was still standing near the southern edge of Stillwell in
1970 when this information was given. In 1896 there were 2 graduates. In 1906 a
two story brick building containing eight classrooms and for the first time
housing 12 grades, was erected directly in front of the site of the present
school. One June 21, 1941 sparks from a railway locomotive passing through town
ignited a nearby barn. The flames in turn set the school on fire and in a
matter of hours the school was completely destroyed.
From 1941 to 1944 school was held in several portable
buildings and also in the building which was later used as a school shop. The
first year there were three Quonset huts, each twenty feet by forty feet in
size. The year a larger enrollment brough about the purchase of another Quonset
hut twenty feet by sixty feet in size, which was set up along side the others.
Each building was partitioned into two classrooms of equal size, each with a
small oil heater. These buildings were later removed and put to other uses in
the community. Because of a shortage of materials during World War ll the
building of the new school was delayed until 1944, in that same year the school
was completed. The new school was a great improvement over the Quonset huts.
The new school was built of cement blocks and had fourteen class rooms.
Included in these rooms were an office, cafeteria, kitchen bymnasium, home
economics room and a science laboratory and an assembly hall and other
elementary class rooms.