REASONS FOR CONSTRUCTING THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL

Three years previous to the dedication of the new building, “the Manhattan school authorities were having a problem with the school boys frequenting the pool hall. The businessmen and others were appealed to (to) help solve the problem.” Efforts were made to raise thirty thousand dollars for the construction of a Community building. ‘The preliminary pledges were most promising, indicating that enough money could be raised for this purpose. ... In working out the plan, however, for the maintenance of this building . . . the committee in charge had their hardest problem, in fact successful or continuous maintenance could not be worked out,” so the project was abandoned.

 

At the same time, the old school was overflowing and being forced to go outside its own plant and rent additional quarters. Both the high school and grade school were being maintained in a building designed only as a grade school. “The need for having a new high school was becoming more and more necessary.”

Considering these facts, the need for a community service building and the need for a high school building, developed the idea of a Community high school building. The following May an election was held to determine if a new school should be constructed. The proposition passed by a vote of one hundred ninety-five to fifteen, thus instructing the school board to secure the necessary funds and draw up plans.

The bond market being poor at that time and the cost of building materials at a high peak, plans were deferred until the following spring.

By then, the requests and demands of the citizens became so acute that the board determined to take action. In the meantime, the bond market had greatly improved, and the costs of building materials had “decreased tremendously.” In addition, labor and contractors were experiencing “stagnation conditions ... so that every cir­cumstance seemed to justify the board’s action.” A six percent bond issue for sixty-four thousand dollars was sold and, as the plans for the school had been drawn the year' before and carefully worked over by the board, all was in order to call for bids.

The fact that it was to be a Community High School became a real problem as so many other details, or angles, had to be considered, and “so many peculiar problems had to be satisfied. ...” all were eventually solved.

One year after the election approving construction, the board moved forward and, a year later, the building was dedicated.

About that time, an experienced school man from the Middlewest toured the building and expressed his opinion of the new building: “This is the finest high school plan I have ever seen and I have seen a great many. It is so beautiful, so well built, so well planned, so full of light . . . and so complete in every conceivable respect.”¹

Apparently the Manhattan Commercial Club promot­ed and secured the installation of the big Olympic-sized swimming pool in the new building. The pool was sup­posedly constructed without direct cost to the taxpayers and was not to increase taxes. “The result had been accomplished through a philanthropical loan of the amount of money necessary for the construction of the pool by Mr. Lew Frank of the firm of Kroffgans and Frank (contractors of the new building), to the Manhattan Swimming Pool Association, Inc.” The association had been organized by the Commercial Club for the specific purpose of financing the pool.

It was the only nonprofit-sharing corporation in the state of Montana. It had no assets and depended on contributions, the revenue from the use of the pool and other school activities to pay for the pool.²

Notes:

¹ The Rocky Mountain American—June 28, 1923, page 1, col. 4

²Ibid.,  October 12, 1922, page 1, col. 3

From Manhattan Omnibus by Frank L. Niven (1989) page 216