This site, surrounded by trees with a rusting swing near a monument dedicated in 1988, was the location of Petersburg School, at Whitewater in what is now the Municipality of Boissevain-Morton. The school district was formally established in May 1893, with the classes beginning in 1895 in a one-room schoolhouse constructed using locally manufactured bricks. The original building was later replaced by a wood frame structure. The school operated until January 1968. As of the early 1990s, the former school building was still present at the site but is now gone. The monument also commemorates Whitewater Church, which stood here from 1904 to 1957.
The original Petersburg School building (no date) by W. J. Parr
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 122.
The second Petersburg School building (circa 1986)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 766.
Petersburg School commemorative monument (August 2010)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Petersburg School commemorative monument (May 2020)
Source: Kathryn HyndmanSite Coordinates (lat/long): N49.20372, W100.28451
denoted by symbol on the map above
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Whitewater Presbyterian Church (Whitewater, RM of Morton)
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.
Beckoning Hills Revisited: Ours is a Goodly Heritage, Morton-Boissevain, 1881-1981 by Boissevain-Morton History Committee, 1981, page 329.
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 Neil Christoffersen, David Ford, and Kathryn Hyndman for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 28 May 2020
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