High School for ranch kids meant boarding in town for many

Albany County is one of seven counties in Wyoming where all the various school districts are now combined into one for elementary education. Rural and city schools are under the same umbrella. But it wasn’t always that way.

RURAL SCHOOLS

In the old days, rural schools went through 8th grade. There was no kindergarten until after WWII. Most had just one room, with all grades taught by one teacher. Districts set their own boundaries, often so big that several far-flung rural schoolhouses were necessary. The needs changed yearly, depending on where the children lived. The county collected district taxes and sent the funds to those elected to the school board of the district.

Bob Gietz, whose parents frequently moved from one ranch to another during his elementary years in the 1940s, recalls that he attended five different rural schools. One of those “schools” was his own living room with his mother the teacher, at a time when there were no other kids nearby.

The rural school was often the end of schooling for many students—eighth grade was considered adequate. But many ranching families were anxious to have their children attend high school despite the sacrifices that might be involved.

LHS MOVES AROUND

Laramie’s East Side School (now the Civic Center on Garfield and 7th Streets) may have offered classes through the 10th grade when it opened in 1878. But in 1887, the University of Wyoming began and offered preparatory classes. All Laramie high school age students went there instead, said Martha Wallis, a student at the time. So it became the de facto Laramie High School (LHS). Robert Noble and Miss Wallis were quoted in the 1986 book “Laramie--Gem City of the Plains.” Dr. Noble said there were no 4-year high schools in Wyoming in 1887, so UW had to offer those “prep” classes before any scholars would be ready for college-level courses.

Apparently, this arrangement with UW continued until 1908 when the North Side School (now demolished) was built at 8th and Fremont. It became LHS, graduating the first class in 1911 with nine students. It reverted to elementary grades when Washington School at 9th and Grand, (now Washington Apartments) was built as LHS.

Then in 1930 the old East Side School was remodeled on the Garfield St. side, with a $300,000 addition. That became the new LHS—other additions were added to the east, west, and south sides to complete the “donut” with the original East Side School still standing in the middle of all those additions. In 1960 the “new” LHS was built at Hancock and 11th Streets, only to be demolished itself when the latest (2015) LHS was built on Boulder Drive.

Rock River, the only other incorporated town in Albany County, also has had a high school for a number of years. All Rock River students might be considered rural, since the town has a current population estimate of 258 people. Students from Laramie may choose to go there, and some do.

Throughout all these moves, high school in town was available to rural students, but they had to figure out how to get there. School busses were all but non-existent; occasionally a group of families would contract with a rancher to supply transportation. Donna Gabrielson Cole recalls an arrangement like that when she attended the Harmony School through 7th grade. It was about two miles from her parent’s ranch.

The ride back and forth to Laramie daily might have taken as much as four hours one way before automobilies. That was a lot of time from a rancher’s schedule—there was no point in going back home just to turn around and make the trip again to pick up the kids. Plus, there could be days in the winter when visibility or drifts made the trip impossible.

Therefore, rural families hit on a solution that was common across the country, boarding their children in town. Often the kids would come home for the weekends as soon as school was out on Friday afternoons when an older sibling or a parent came to get them.

BOYS & GIRLS DIFFER

With boys, it was easy to make arrangements for high school in the horse and buggy days. They could stay at the livery stable for free in exchange for doing a little work. Or several families could go together to arrange for a room in a boarding house that boys of high school age could share.

There were four boarding houses listed in the 1913 Laramie City Directory. They were operated by Ida Elder, Dosha Jackson, Minnie McCullough, and Tillie Reger. All were near the center of town, easy walking distance to Laramie’s Washington High School at 9th and Grand that had just opened a few years earlier.

Another option was to find room and board with a family in Laramie. Bob Gietz, who now lives in Washington State, says that, like his two older sisters before him, he boarded with private families for high school. “[My] last year was a combination of single room rented and some commuting from home,” he says, an indication that by 1947 roads were much better and commuting time lessened.

Girls presented a different situation than the boys; they needed to be chaperoned and looked after a lot more carefully lest their reputations suffer. In 1921 the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming found a good solution for ranch girls all over the state and region. It was to form a girls’ boarding school in the heart of Laramie. The Ivinson Mansion had just become available as the 91-year-old widower Edward Ivinson had decided to deed his large house over to the Diocese for that purpose.

CATHEDRAL SCHOOLS

Quickly the Jane Ivinson Memorial Hall School for Girls (also known as the Cathedral School) was inundated with applications from families eager to take advantage of this opportunity. The house underwent $22,000 in renovations which included adding a bathroom to the formerly unused third floor of the house, where at least 20 beds were set up. The mansion also had a chapel, infirmary, “Principal’s” residence, kitchen, and dining room. Note that “school” is used loosely for both the boys’ and girls’ facilities. The “schooling” part was provided by UW.

Classes were at University Prep. After-school activities included archery, music, drama, and calisthenics. Special events like formal teas were instituted to develop skills and proper manners. By 1924, there was a clear need for more dormitory space, so a wealthy Episcopalian, Charles Voorhis of Wisconsin, who owned a ranch near Dubois, Wyoming, was persuaded to donate funds for a separate dormitory building. It opened as “Virginia Cottage,” named for Voorhis’ daughter. Neither father nor daughter spent much time, if any, in Laramie.

In 1973, when the Laramie Plains Museum Association obtained the property, Virginia Cottage was renamed to honor Alice Hardie Stevens. She was instrumental in raising the funds to secure the Ivinson Mansion property for the Association. It has since been almost tripled in size to become a rental events center.

With the success of the Cathedral Girl’s School, the Diocese decided to establish a boy’s dormitory as well. At first the Cathedral School for Boys was in the former St. Joseph’s Hospital (at 15th and Grand, now demolished), which had closed many years earlier. Then a wealthy woman in New York City, Mary Sherwood Blodgett, supplied the necessary funds for a new building. Sherwood Hall, named for her father. It was opened as a residence for boys on the Cathedral grounds at 4th St. in Laramie in the late 1920s. As with the girls, the boys took their high school classes at UW Prep.

Sherwood Hall became Hunter Hall after the boy’s school closed. The girl’s school closed with the class that graduated in 1958. Paved roads and automobiles made a big difference in commuting times. The rural districts combined into one, which probably made it possible for the county-wide district to afford school busses.

ONE BOY’S SURPRISE

John Wesley “Wes” Johnson (1892-1973) turned 15 in the fall of 1907 after graduating from 8th grade. His family’s ranch was 23 miles west of Laramie on the south side of highway 230. Before the road was paved, “the ride to town in a buggy could be 4-6 hours” he recalled in a memoir written in 1968.

He had been working that summer and expected that his schooling at the Sodergreen Ranch Rural School was all the education he was going to get. It had been enough for his three older brothers.

When Wes returned home after a summer job, his parents, Jacob and Sophia Johnson, had a surprise for him. They decided that their youngest child (there were six in all) should go to school in town along with his sister who was a year older. They would be attending UW Prep at first, then the North Side School at 8th and Fremont Streets, from 1909 on. Though it had been built as LHS, by 1911 it became Stanton Elementary School. It has been torn down now, replaced by several buildings of the Lionsgate Apartments on the site.

Wes’s folks had already decided to buy a home in Laramie, at 513 S. 10th St. He and his sister could enjoy a short walk to school instead of a long hike or buggy ride. Before school started in 1907, Superintendent of Schools Emma Howell Knight called at the house. She asked to place another boy his age in the Johnson home. Wes was conflicted because his parents weren’t home at the time, but he did give permission.

WES GAINS A PAL

Vernon Simmons was the same age as Wes but had only completed the fifth grade. He had dropped out to follow his dad around to various mining jobs. Mrs. Knight placed him in the 6th grade, so he graduated from LHS two years later than Wes. Vern was an avid hiker. Once the two of them walked the 23 miles from the Johnson Ranch to Laramie in six hours, happy for the record time they made.

“We were still in the horse and buggy days [1907] even if there were a few autos coming into the picture,” Wes wrote. For entertainment, the high school students organized hayrides. As a ranch kid with plenty of experience with horses, it fell to his lot to hire the teams and the wagons.

“We would drive out to some place in the hills east of town were the big bonfire would be built. Weinies and marshmallows were roasted to go with lots of other good food furnished by the girls, and believe me, a good time was had by all,” he writes, adding that both faculty and students participated in the hayrides.

In Laramie before 1906 “anyone wishing to go on above the eighth grade went to the prep school at the University of Wyoming,” Wes recalls. But he does point out that when he began the next year, most other towns in Wyoming had high schools. He claims there “enough big boys to make up a football team.”

He played on the team for two years, which wore uniforms that the merchants of Laramie provided. “As a football team we were probably pretty green,” he says, but when he was a senior, in 1911, they won the state championship.

BOARDING CONTINUES

Long-time Albany County resident, Donna Gabrielson Cole, was one of the ranch kids who attended both 8th grade and high school in Laramie, all in the same remodeled former East Side School (now the Civic Center). Donna was fortunate to have a grandmother whose big house accommodated renters, including herself, her older sister Ialene, and her mother. They would all go back to the ranch on weekends, she recalls, unless school activities interfered. Ialene graduated in 1951, Donna in 1952.

In Donna’s freshman year of high school her parents bought a house in Laramie which became their weekday home—again, they commuted back to the ranch on weekends. “They kept it until after I graduated from high school,” Donna recalls—and even today this has become a common solution for ranching families. Both Donna Gabrielson and Bob Gietz earned awards for their grades and leadership, proving that their rural school education was equal to that provided in town.

The Laramie Plains Museum (LPM) has a collection of photos, ledgers, yearbooks, and scrapbooks from some Laramie and rural schools. However, there is a big gap from the 1930s through the 1950s. Contact the museum (307 742-4448) if you think you might have items for the collection. The curatorial staff will be glad to scan and return to you any local photos that you can find.

By Judy Knight

High School for ranch kids meant boarding in town for many

Proud history of rural schools in Albany County. Flexibility required of teachers, pupils, and school boards.

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