We think that the history of a school is important, not only to those of us looking to our 10, 20, or 50 year reunion, but to our families and friends. Part of the Foundation's mission is to help connect people back home. Even in our research, it should be noted that giving back to the school was a fact of life in these parts; even the class of 1908 donated a beautiful $200 Cantoria Frieze to put in the school's assembly hall (according to the 1912 high school annual).

The Early Days
The history of the Fergus Falls School District goes back to the earliest days of the town itself. The first classes, in what was then District 21, met in the summer of 1871, the year before Fergus Falls officially became a village. In 1871, the Baptists had formed the city's first church but as yet had no building, the postmaster couldn't read English, and Fergus Falls' weekly newspaper was printing partially in Norse.
 
It was an inauspicious start for the school district. The first classes were in a horse barn on the bank of the Otter Tail River near Central Dam, and neither the flies nor the odor were helpful to the education process. A month after classes began for the 21 students, the teacher (who was being paid $38 a month) eloped with a stage driver! It was December before a new term could begin - this time in a small building near the corner of Lincoln and Union.
 
Growing enrollment - it was up to 160 students by 1876 - required the district to move and expand several times. In 1883, Washington High School was built at the corner of Union and Cavour, and the district's first seven graduates received their diplomas in 1884. Both the valedictorian and salutatorian gave speeches on the classics, with the salutatorian speaking in Latin!
 
About this same time, Adams School - the city's first elementary school - was built, and Jefferson School was completed shortly after. (Both were replaced in 1939.) In December 1887, only four years after the new high school was built, it burned to the ground after a fire began in the basement heating plant. With the temperature at minus 26 degrees, the firefighters' water froze the instant it touched the buildings' walls. The fire broke out during Christmas vacation and caused a financial hardship for many families. Students, at the time, had to purchase their own books, as they'd been advised to leave their books at the school for safekeeping over the holidays.

A new Washington high school was erected, using a portion of the former one in its construction. The new building had three stories, on the first floor were several lower grades, on the second the high school, and on the third floor the eighth grade. It was known as one of the best high schools in this part of the state at the time!

Things Were Looking Up 
By the mid-1890s, things were going well for the district. Chemistry and vocal music had been added to the curriculum, and the school board had voted to open the high school library to the public. There were bumps on the road to education, though. The minutes of an 1894 school board meeting state that members agreed to refund $1.50 to each of the two Norwegians who paid $4.50 apiece for the winter quarter. They quit, the minutes relate, because they could not understand the English language.
 
In 1904, Adams School was closed because of smallpox, and Lincoln School was completed. That was also the year that Washington School burned for the second time, with an estimated loss of $35,000, including $4,000 worth of text books. The next high school was erected shortly thereafter.

The Adams, Jefferson and McKinley schools were completed in 1939, and additions to the buildings were first occupied in 1957. That same year, Eisenhower and Cleveland schools were built, and a full-year kindergarten was established. Also in 1957, the name of the district was changed from District 21 to District 544.

As student numbers continued to increase, Roosevelt Park Senior High School (also known as Fergus Falls High School) was completed in 1953. The "junior college wing" was added to the high school in 1961, and a vocational wing was opened in January 1967. Then, over a two-day period in late May of 1967, Washington School was again destroyed by fire. While a new junior high was being built on a site north of the senior high, students from the senior and junior high attended classes in shifts at the high school. Students in grades 10-12 went to school from 7 a.m. until 12:20 p.m., and those in grades 7-9 had classes from 12:30-5:45 p.m. Junior college classes were moved to Fergus Falls State Hospital, and eventually to a new college campus on the northwest edge of town. The new junior high was completed in the fall of 1969.
 
Endings and Beginnings
The following years brought endings and beginnings: the closing of the rural schools in the districts, and eventually the closing of Madison, Lincoln and Jefferson schools. (Madison and Lincoln were eventually torn down, and Jefferson became the headquarters for the Lake County Service Unit.) Eisenhower closed and then reopened as a kindergarten center for all kindergartners in the district. The junior high school became a middle school, with grades 5-8. The administrative offices moved out of the middle school and into a building on the campus of the Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center.

We'd love to hear from you about your experiences in any of these schools, whether it was in the 1930s or the 1990s. Just email us and in the subject line put "school memories" and we'll feature some of them here!