MANHATTAN’S COMBINATION GRADE AND HIGH SCHOOL

Manhattan’s first brick school building was completed and occupied in February, 1914. It was a “strikingly handsome structure, whose durability and utility was not surpassed. . . .” The board of trustees at the time of construction consisted of Harry J. Thomas, President; L.M. LaLacheur; Harry Altenbrand and Mrs. H.E. Becker.

 

The new building located at the north end of Broadway “had a commanding appearance with its eighty-six foot frontage and three-story height, the depth of the struc­ture being fifty-six feet.” The superstructure was brick with cement floors and stairs. However, the floors had been overlaid with hard maple flooring. The building contained a “cozy apartment for the janitor. . . .’’ Two boil­ers provided the heat.

The Manhattan school had recently been “raised” to an accredited high school, “by which the district received $500 (per pupil ?) from the high school fund of Gallatin County" The high school had “fifteen students taking courses above the eighth grade studies.” Their instructor was Prof. W. Templeton, and his “corps of assistants” were “Miss Olive Selen, Miss Hilda Anderson, Miss Dorothy Gatton and Miss Ethel Seely.”¹

Another article, written in 1917, stated that Fred F. Willson, Bozeman, was the architect and that the build­ing with its equipment had cost $32,500. It also said that “the Altenbrand Park, now completed and in front, gives it a most complete surrounding, and with the present faculty, Manhattan has the finest and best school of any town its size in the state.”²

 

 

During the nationwide flu epidemic in 1918, the school was closed and the building converted to a hospi­tal for the duration of the epidemic. Four people are said to have died there during that period.

 

The combination arrangement continued through the spring of 1923. The new high school became available that fall.

 

Notes:

¹The Manhattan Record—February 5, 1914, page 1, col. 3

² Ibid., —April 26, 1917, page 1, col. 4

From Manhattan Omnibus by Frank L. Niven (1989) page 215