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From the Itasca Centennial
When Bovey was Young Bovey was young when this picture was taken of Second
avenue. Note the pig rooting in the street. The scene looks toward Trout
Lake, then at the foot of Second avenue. The Trout Lake community was first
reached by boat from Bovey over Trout lake during the summer and over the
ice of the lake in winter. There was no road, no trail.
Populations Independent School District No. 2, all part of the important
Mid-Itasca area, has a population of approximately 7,500. This estimate is
based upon a complete tabulation of school census results for 1947.
Early History of the Bovey School IN 1903-4 the news spread that iron ore mining operations
were about to be opened in Itasca County just north of Trout Lake. A
town-site company platted forty acres of forest covered land for the new
town of Bovey, the first of six villages which later developed in School
District No. Two. Workmen, merchants, boarding-house keepers, adventurous
pioneers flocked to the new mining location in 1904-5. In keeping with the
American tradition wherever there are children there must be public schools.
When school opened in September the Bovey teachers were Miss
Hawley, grammer grades in the small belfry-topped building, Miss Louise
Spencer, primary grades, and Miss Minnie Corbett, intermediate grades, both
in the other one-room building. The cloakroom was used in which to conduct
recitations with "standing room only." With the rapid increase of school
population a new frame building, known as the Leibermann Hall, was rented
and Miss Corbett and the intermediate grades were transferred there. This
building was located on or near the site of Olson's garage and across the
street from the Star Movie Theatre. Miss Berry of Duluth was the teacher at
the Prairie River rural school, situated about a half mile east of the
bridge near the E. J. Anderson home. (This building was later destroyed by
fire and never replaced.) Miss Berry was transferred to Bovey to assist Miss
Spencer with the now over-crowded primary grades. The few children in Coleraine attended school in Bovey
during the fall term. By January, 1907, so many families had moved into
these bustling, new mining towns that primary and intermediate classrooms
were opened in the new store building of W. J. Stock in Coleraine. Miss
Spencer and Miss Corbett were transferred there. At the same time, January
14, the first high school of the District was opened with four students in a
front room on the second floor of the Stock building, Miss Gould of Hudson,
Wisconsin was the teacher. The Superintendent's office was on the second floor of the
Bovey drug store, across the street from the Northern Hotel. There were two
rooms, one Used for the office and the other, furnished with cot. was the
schoolman's living quarters. His family remained in Fergus Falls until
August, 1907, as it was impossible to rent a residence in these new
villages. The school office furniture was distinctly the "pioneer pattern".
No polished oak, roll-topped desk; no upholstered, swivel chair. Instead
there were- a cheap kitchen table and chair; the typewriter stand was a
rough box from a grocery store; for an office file there was purchased for
fifty cents a crude piece of furniture which had been thrown out of Niles
and Aiton's meat market across the street. The room was heated by the
conventional type of hard-coal, base-burner stove. In April, 1907, the new
school building in Coleraine was so far completed that the office was moved
there. Living conditions were hard. The schoolman "boarded around"
at boarding houses with miners, engineers, and "bosses," or at the tarpaper,
lunch-counter-shacks, owned and operated from cooking to dishwashing by a.
man who had been a cook in a logging camp. But the superintendent was too
busy to worry about the inconveniences of frontier conditions. Children,
coming from everywhere, had to be placed in proper classes; textbooks and
their school supplies must be ordered for the ever increasing enrollment;
new classrooms opened and furniture, purchased and installed. When
additional blackboards were needed at the old Trout Lake rural school he
hired a livery team in Bovey to drive nearly twenty miles through Grand
Rapids and around the lower end of Trout Lake to reach the school building
only three miles from Bovey. There was not even a footpath through the dense
forests between Bovey and the Rydberg farm near the school. His first visit
was made to the Trout Lake school by row boat. In winter the trip was made
by team and sleigh across the frozen lake. Enrollment of the Bovey school in 1906-7 was probably about
100. September, 1907, the new brick school building was ready for use. Miss
Willetta-Dolan was the first principal. Her sister, Alice, was the, first
teacher and also the first principal at Taconite in a new frame school
building which was completed in the fall of 1906, being the first school
building of more than two rooms in School District No. Two. The only
foundation for this four-room structure was cedar posts. It is a part of the
present remodeled building. When shown the plans for the new brick school for Bovey, the
Superintendent advised the Board of Education that is should provide for at
least eight classrooms. He was told that four rooms would be ample for some
time. On the opening day of school four rooms were packed and the office of
the principal had to be furnished with seats and desks or pupils and this
room was packed like "sardines in a box".
Soon it was necessary to use a part of the auditorium on the
second floor, not intended for class use. A year later two, poorly lighted,
small class rooms were made in what was dormer-window space in front on the
second floor. Later six rooms, including a combined office and library were
added at the rear. After the building had been badly damaged by fire the
auditorium was completely remodeled. About 1920 the addition for physical
education was constructed. This afforded a splendid gymnasium, with gallery,
and a modern swimming pool with shower and locker rooms. The first gymnasium
in the District was at the Olcott School in Marble. Bovey was the first with
swimming pool. The Greenway High School had neither gym nor pool. For basket
ball contests Greenway first used the gymnasium at Olcott and later the one
at Bovey. The Junior High School at Bovey was organized probably about
1925 or 1926.
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