Known as the Mezieres School District when it was established in March 1919, it was renamed Bell in 1920, in honour of local resident Donald Bell. A one-classroom, wood frame schoolhouse, teacherage, and stable were built on a 40-acre site at NE23-9-8W in what is now the Municipality of Norfolk Treherne. In August 1920, the school opened for classes in grades 1 to 8, with instruction in grades 9 to 10 by correspondence.
The school closed in 1964 and students from this area went to Rathwell Consolidated School or St. Claude Consolidated School. The district was dissolved in 1965 and its area became part of the Mountain School Division. The former school building stood at its original site until at least the 1980s but was later moved to the Dairy Museum of Manitoba at St. Claude. A commemorative monument, erected on 19 August 2000, stands at its former location.
Bell School (no date) by G. H. Robertson
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-3, page 66.
The former Bell School building (circa 1986)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 1305.
Former Bell School at the Manitoba Dairy Museum (June 2019)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Bell School commemorative monument (September 2013)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.76090, W98.43822
denoted by symbol on the map above
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.
A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.
We thank Robert De Smet for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 29 June 2019
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