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Jubilee School
(Rural School #1122)
On the grounds of the Indian Head Museum, Jubilee
School serves as an example of the 12 rural schools
in the Indian Head district. Its story began over 100
years ago.
On February 13, 1904, a committee asked the North
West Territories Dept. of Education for permission to
establish a school district. A. M. Fraser charged $20 to
draw the plans, B. F. Holden donated the land, and W.
K. Kerr built the school for $210 with 20,000 bricks
from Clem Peltier’s brick plant at Katepwa. The 24-foot
by 34-foot school building was completed in January,
1905. As the Holden farm was called Jubilee Farm, after
Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, the school
also carried the name.
The first teacher in the original school, Miss Margaret
McMorris, boarded with a nearby family and had 11
students from three families—the minimum enrollment
was ten in order to qualify for a school grant of $1 a
day or $200 a year. One of the students, A. R. Hamilton,
earned $25 a year as school caretaker.
The brick building eventually deteriorated and was
replaced in 1926 by a sound wooden school, built by
Thomas Ramsay. At the time, there were also two
outhouses, a stable and a shed for wood and coal. Miss
Elizabeth Ramsay, daughter of Thomas Ramsay, taught
at the new school from 1939 to 1941, for a salary of
$550 a year. She too had 11 students, including those
taking high school by correspondence. When attendance
dropped, Jubilee School closed in 1955 and in December
1963 the school district ceased to exist.
Franklin Holden and his wife, Eleanor, donated the
Jubilee schoolhouse to the Indian Head Museum in
1980. DT + TG
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