The Johnston School District was formally established November 1893 and, the next year, a one-room frame school building was erected at SE15-10-24W on land in what is now the Rural Municipality of Wallace-Woodworth donated by William Johnston. Student enrollment in grades 1 to 8 peaked at 22 in 1927 but low numbers forced the school to close several times (for example, 1911-1917, and 1935-1952) before its final closure in June 1964. The district was dissolved in January 1967 when it was consolidated with Oak Lake Consolidated School No. 439. The former school building was removed from the site during the summer of 1981 and a small fieldstone monument unveiled on 19 July 1992 commemorates it.
Among the teachers of Johnston School were Robert Boyes (1894) and Winnie Steen (?-?).
Johnston School (no date) by W. R. Beveridge
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 126.
Johnston School commemorative monument (September 2011)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.82807, W100.65574
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.
Ox Trails to Blacktop by Oak Lake History Committee, 1982, Manitoba Legislative Library, F 5649.O23 Oxt.
We thank Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 March 2021
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