Schools
Charlevoix’s schools began in a log structure erected in 1861 on Morris J. Stockman’s property overlooking Pine Lake that would later become the Belvedere Club. In 1868, the second school was put up on the Oleson grocery store property on Antrim Street downtown. The third school, a four-room building, went up in 1873 between Clinton and Mason Streets east of Grant Street. It burned to the ground in February, 1889. The fourth school was partially finished in its place and in use that fall, seen here in 1890. Its pointed belfry roof was blown apart by a lightning strike in early April of 1903 and rebuilt lower
A steady population increase caused the building known as the McKinley High School, in honor of the recently assassinated President, to be erected south of the fourth school in 1901-02. It served until 1961. After a new elementary school was opened on Grant Street in 1928, the fourth school, at right, was used mainly for meeting rooms, storage and band practice. It came down in 1945. The Community Room of the new state-of-the-art Charlevoix Public Library today occupies the site of the High School.
“There is no feature of the development of Charlevoix from the pioneer days just following the Mormon exodus that more strikingly marks our growth than the march, step by step from the little log school house to our present fine, solid, brick temple of education; and there is no feature of our progress to which we can point with greater pride than to the record of School District No. 1 of Charlevoix, in the mental training of its young.” Charlevoix Sentinel, July 5, 1894
As Charlevoix grew, pressure on the fourth school prompted the construction in 1895 of two smaller elementary (K-4) schools on either side of town. The Washington School stood at the northeast corner of Burns Street and Petoskey Avenue on the north side, and the Lincoln School was on East Garfield near Bridge Street on the south, now the American Legion hall. Here, kindergartners through second graders pose in the Washington School around 1912.
Generations of students remember the kindergarten fishpond in the elementary school on Grant Street. It was almost a rite of passage to have fallen in during one’s formative first year of education. The teachers kept dry clothes on hand. Appearing here are half of the kindergarten class of 1939. Today this is the much used Belvedere Room that houses the periodicals and newspapers area of the new Charlevoix Public Library.