FROM PAGE 1 Now one third of a century on from the historic school building’s demolition, a new chapter will be written, with four duplexes identical to current ones on the south end of Dewey Street across from Ike to be built at the site off North Franklin, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

The four one-story duplexes will consist of two separate living spaces each with attached garages in front. The soon-to-be new construction will be built on 1.5 acres owned by local couple Travis and Kelly Krizan, with an alleyway platted east to west as well at the County GIS site. The old Dodge School property with adjacent gymnasium has an assessed value of $50,400 before construction.

“We’ve had the land for about three years, maybe four,” Krizan said at the site of the soon-coming construction project. As to the duplexes soon to come, “we’re making them ground-level,” he said, open for all to rent, but particularly convenient for those who might have trouble getting around in a multi-level dwelling. As single-story residences the duplexes will not have basements, Krizan said, while the exact rent to be asked is being left open at present to avoid false promises. And while the exact completion date is somewhat difficult to determine, Krizan said they were looking at a completion date of this September. So with 18 years of local residence does Krizan have any memories himself of the old school? Kind of.

“I didn’t go to school here,” he says, “but when I was growing up my grandma and grandpa lived on Emery Street,” he said of the street one block west. Krizan said he and others would come play on the playground at the school until it was torn down, when he was in elementary school. So with new development finally coming to the old school site, just what was the old Dodge School like, on the inside? We peeked back in the archives for a look at what the old site was like.

“Next Monday…marks a new epoch in the history of Stanley,” the local news from September 9, 1905 reports. With Theo. A. Hoidahl the president of the Board of Education and H. C. Stair as superintendent of schools, Monday next marked, “the beginning of the occupancy of the elegant new High School building on Franklin Street,” the local Stanley Republican reported. Constructed “at a cost of about $40,000” (in 1905), the then Stanley High School sought a broad range of educational talents including Emma Christianson of Stanley and offering both Latin (ancient classical language) and German (modern classical language) in addition to Math, History and English. The school on North Franklin was “what is known as a twelve-room school, with a gymnasium in the basement and scientific analytical balances “imported direct from Paris,” per the newspaper editor Mr. Bridgman.

Functioning as the city high school for several years, the old Stanley High/Dodge Elementary School served together with the Second Ward (Lincoln) School and Fourth Ward (Helgerson Street) school to educate city youth, prior to consolidation with Boyd and the building of a brandnew high school around 1960, or 61 years ago this year. For its final act as an educational institution prior to its 1987 demolition, the school property hosted an auction, complete with a picture in fall 1987 for the newspaper. At the time, the newspaper reported that the building would be detached from its underlying foundations, with a parking lot among the potential uses while the nearby hospital worked details out. This wasn’t far off the mark for the property over many years, though occasional use as a neighborhood ball field by local youth along with diagonal cutting across the large square were known for young people on their way to school further to the east and up the street.

Now that duplexes will soon rise on the old Dodge School property though, those parking lot and school walk shortcut thoughts, can be put to rest—as a new dream is rising.

One side of an identical duplex to those planned for the site of the old Dodge Elementary School. Staff photo.