The Blake School District was established in April 1880 and a one-room schoolhouse operated at SE16-15-12W in what is now the Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone. The original log building was replaced in 1890 and by another in 1910. A fire destroyed this building in 1949 and a new structure replaced it.
The school closed in June 1966 and the district was dissolved in 1967. Its catchment area became part of the Gladstone Consolidated School District and later the Pine Creek School Division. By the 1980s, the former school building (a unique corrugated metal design constructed around 1950) was standing at NW10-15-12W, having been used as a granary. It was not there at the time of a 2012 site visit.
Among the teachers of Blake School were Bessie Winnifred Sweet (1949-1950), Marlene Hamilton (1950-1951), Wilma Maxine Tennant Redford (1951-1953, 1954-1956), George E. Ferguson (1953), Marjorie L. Fletcher (1954), Ruby Marie Hanna (1956-1959), Verna Nettie Funk (1959-1960), and Thelma Roberta Carefoot (1960-1966).
The third Blake School building (no date) by C. K. Rogers
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 29.
The fourth Blake School building (circa 1990)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 548.Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.26895, W99.05357
denoted by symbol on the map above
Arden East topographic map, 62J/6 East, Edition 1, Series A743 [UFS Reference Collection].
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.
Manitoba School Records Collection, Blake School District No. 94 Daily Registers, GR3152, Archives of Manitoba.
Browsing Through the Years: Plumas and District, 1876-1976 by Plumas and District History Committee, 1976, page 37.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 11 August 2023
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