The Thunder Hill School District was established formally in July 1901 and a one-classroom wood frame building was erected the next year in what is now the Municipality of Swan Valley West. By 1907 it was moved 3/4 miles north to this site. It served as a school, church, and social centre until 1926 when it was replaced by a new wood frame structure. The former schoolhouse was moved to a farm where, at the time of a 2015 site visit, it was being used for firewood storage. The school remained opened until 1963 and the district was dissolved four years later. The former school building was moved to a farmyard at NE21-35-29W where it was used as a granary. A fieldstone monument, dedicated in July 1990, commemorates the school at its former site.
Among the teachers of Thunder Hill School were Miss Minnie Edmond (1902) and Mrs. Natalie Wilson (1963).
Thunder Hill School (no date) by J. S. Peach
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 68.
The first Thunder Hill School building (June 2015)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Thunder Hill School monument (July 2012)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N52.02735, W101.53618
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.
Boots, Buggies & Buses: Swan Valley Schools in Quest of Education, Swan Valley School Division No. 35, circa 1998.
We thank Bert Stewart for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 15 February 2021
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