Historic Sites of Manitoba: Langruth Consolidated School No. 1303 (Langruth, Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone)

Link to:
Principals | Vice-Principals | Teachers | Photos & Coordinates | Sources

The Langruth School District was established formally in October 1910, but it was short-lived, being consolidated early the next year, into the Langruth Consolidated School District, through its merger with Poplar Leaf School District No. 1303.

Langruth Consolidated School District No. 1303 was formed in May 1911, and a modest wood frame school building was erected in the village of Langruth, in what is now the Municipality of WestLake-Gladstone. As of the late 1980s, that building was still standing, and being used as a storage building. Meanwhile, it had been replaced by a brick structure that stood until 1953, when it was replaced by a new two-storey wood frame building beside it. A high school building was erected later, on a nearby site along Highway #50 and the original school was used for elementary classes.

When the high school closed, students from the elementary school were moved in. The former elementary school sat empty for some time, then was renovated by the Sandy Lake First Nation for use as apartments for their school teachers. The building was later closed due to violation of health standards and has been sitting vacant for some years.

A monument on the grounds of the present Langruth Elementary School, topped by the former school bell and dedicated on 30 June 1984, commemorates rural schools that were consolidated with it through the years: Airedale School No. 1492, Amana School No. 928, Big Point School No. 962, Hecland School No. 1277, Hollywood School No. 1279, Lakeside School No. 225, Langruth School No. 1550, Marshland School No. 1278, and North Lakeland School No. 754.

Principals

Period	Principal
1921-1923	James Thomas Hulme (1864-1938)
1923-1924	George Robert Farrar Prowse (1860-1946)
1924-1927	?
1927-1928	Albert Wallace Craigie (1891-1964)
1928-1933	?
1933-1935	Glenn Homer Turner (1912-1987)
1935-1938	Cameron Laird Connell (1913-2010)
1938-1939	Allan Thomas Fallis (1911-1971)
1939-1940	Henry Benjamin Bees (c1886-1968)
1940-1944	Benjamin Foreman (c1898-1981)
1944-1949	William V. Domitrack (1908-1978)
1949-1950	Ethel Wood
1950-1955	Gerald Lionel Kuran (?-?)
1955-1956	Florence Grace Chappell (c1912-1967)
1956-1957	Robert Cameron Mulligan (1889-1976)
1957-1970	Victoria Olive Crealock Hall (1901-1971)
1970-1971	R. Cibula

Teachers

School Year	Teachers
1953-1954	Miss Ann Baker (grades 5-6), Mrs. H. Jackson (grades 1-2), Miss Cathy Marchant (grades 3-4), Wilmer John Shynkaruk (grades 7-8)

Among the other teachers of Langruth School was A. J. Starr.

Photos & Coordinates

The first Langruth Consolidated School (no date) by J. B. Morrison Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 94. The first Langruth School building (circa 1990) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 546. The second Langruth Consolidated School, with the earlier school building visible to the left (no date) by J. B. Morrison Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs, GR8461, A0233, C131-2, page 94. The second Langruth Consolidated School (circa 1911) Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspector Photos GR2664, C65. Students and horse-drawn vans beside the second Langruth School (circa 1914) Source: Education Department Report, 1914, Manitoba Legislative Library. The second Langruth School building (no date) Source: Ed Arndt The second Langruth School building (no date) Source: Ed Arndt The third Langruth School building (circa 1990) Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 545. The third Langruth School, later used as a teachers’ residence by the Sandy Lake First Nation, now closed (April 2012) Source: Gordon Goldsborough The third Langruth School (May 2022) Source: Alisa Kehler Monument for the Langruth School, topped by its bell, in front of the present elementary school at N50.38300, W98.67489 (April 2012) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Coordinates (lat/long): N50.38819, W98.67490 denoted by symbol on the map above

See also:

Personal Memoirs: Memories of Teaching at Langruth School (1951-1952) by Duane Duff

Sources:

Annual Reports of the Manitoba Department of Education, Manitoba Legislative Library.

“Langruth news,” Portage la Prairie Leader, 3 September 1953, page 11.

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 Philip Thordarson, Ed Arndt, and Alisa Kehler for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 2 June 2022

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