The Belle Plain School District was organized formally in March 1877 and a log school building was erected in the northeast corner of 19-12-7 west of the Principal Meridian in the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie. In 1895, a new frame building was erected across the road from the original one, in NW20-12-7W, and the earlier school was used as a school barn until 1950 when it was torn down and its logs were used in the construction of another building.
The school was closed between August 1939 and June 1941 due to lack of students. It closed permanently in June 1965 and the remaining students went to Macdonald Consolidated School No. 2401. The school building was sold and moved to the site of the Bruce Barn for use as a workshop. A monument was unveiled in 1967.
The teachers of Belle Plain School were David W. B. McKay, Margaret Ann Campbell, Sarah Clarke, John Freeborn, Louisa Hill, Jessie Ptolemy, Agnes C. Laut, Minnie A. Ranton, Carter, Johnny and Emma Scott, Eda Wilson, Emeline Scott, R. Gardner Taylor, T. A. Broadfoot (1897), William H. Burns, Henry Johnston Everell, Lizzie Ross, Maude J. Kerr, Edythe Garland, Agnes Brydon, Mary V. Springstein, Mildred Trimble, Grace G. McArthur, Margaret L. Fletcher, Hazel Martin, Gertrude C. Hurton, Maude Pogue, Amy J. Roe, Madeline Bradshaw, Eva P. McKelvey, Sarah R. Craig, Jean McMaster, Gladys M. Caskey, Kathleen Beckett, Maybelle Curtis, Violet R. Wilds, Fred Hyde, Beatrice R. Hyndman, Clara Chritchley, Mildred Tidsbury, Charlotte M. Finlay, William Malcolm “Bill” McMillan, Elsie Burton, Helen Sanderson, Anne Henderson, Winona Horner, Reta Delgatey, Rosemary Matthews, Louise Cook, Shirley Dalgarno, Velma Kolesar, Marionne Sykes, Ila Morgan, Betty Boyachek, Sheila Foxton, Reva Cairns, Lynn Andres, and Mrs. Flora Bell.
Belle Plain School (no date)
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 15.
The final class at Belle Plain School (June 1965)
Source: PCI Archive, Vopni Press Collection, VP-1-00271-002.
Belle Plain School commemorative monument (August 2010)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N50.03401, W98.39952
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Hill Barn / Batters Barn / Bruce Barn (RM of Portage la Prairie)
“The Indian famine fund,” Winnipeg Tribune, 4 March 1897, page 4.
One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.
Rural Schools of Portage la Prairie School Division #24 by Muriel Wright, 1996.
“The last barn standing” by Robin Dudgeon, Portage Daily Graphic, 25 February 2012, page 12.
We thank Glen Lloyd for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 13 September 2024
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