MANHATTAN PARK SCHOOL

Manhattan Park School was built in 1895. Manhattan Park is a neighborhood in Fern Hill near France Avenue where Minneapolis and St. Louis Park meet. As best we can tell, the school was located on 31st Street between Inglewood and Glenhurst, and between Highway 7 and the railroad tracks.

Back in the earliest days of the Park, the residents there felt that the two existing elementary schools, Pratt and Lincoln, were too far away for their children to walk to. When the streetcar company refused a petition for free rides to school for the kids, the people of this neighborhood offered to erect a building 16' x 22' x 12' high if the School Board would furnish fuel, furniture and a teacher. [variously, the school may have been built by Theodore Curtis of the Curtis Hotel.] It was a square, red brick building with one classroom that was heated by a stove. The School Board came through with a teacher, one of the first being Bertha Bates. This early school held five grades in one room.

The school was phased out when Fern Hill was built in 1905. For some reason it is not listed as a part of the village's school district, which was organized in 1888.

 

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This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.