Historic Sites of Manitoba: Plum Coulee School No. 651 (Plum Coulee, Municipality of Rhineland)

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

The Plum Coulee School District was organized in April 1891 and a school operated in the village of Plum Coulee in what is now the Municipality of Rhineland. In late 1919, a four-classroom, one-storey brick school building was constructed on a design by Winnipeg architect Henry William Greene and the former three-room school building and site was sold at auction. This school was destroyed by fire in Fall 1930 but was replaced by another one-storey structure in 1931. It became the Plum Coulee Consolidated School District No. 2446 in 1967, combining with Bloomfield School No. 793, Neu Kronsthal School No. 1137, Hamburg School No. 2139, and Kleefeld School No. 2160.

Principals

Period

Principal

1902-1904

Duncan Crerar (1877-1910)

1904-1924

?

1924-1926

James Thomas Hulme (1864-1938)

1926-1931

Peter W. Warkentin (?-?)

1931-1937

John J. Gardner

1937-1938

A. O. Anderson

1938-1943

Chester MacMillan Fraser (1904-1975)

1943-1946

Ernest Arthur “Ernie” Friesen (1917-2012)

1946-1947

Franklin Stuart “Frank” Presunka (1919-1985)

1947-1948

John Ernest Ingot (?-2001)

1948-1949

J. R. Walkof

1949-1954

H. G. Goertzen

1954-1961

Peter Frederick Kutcher (1918-2013)

1961-1966

H. Neufeld

Teachers

Among the teachers of Plum Coulee School were Angus McGregor (1897) and Leonard Krueger (?-1938).

Photos & Coordinates

The original Plum Coulee School building

The original Plum Coulee School building (circa 1920)
Source: Education Department Report, 1920, Manitoba Legislative Library.

The second Plum Coulee School building, constructed around 1919 and destroyed by fire in 1930

The second Plum Coulee School building, constructed around 1919 and destroyed by fire in 1930 (circa 1920)
Source: Education Department Report, 1920, Manitoba Legislative Library.

Plum Coulee School, built in 1931

Plum Coulee School, built in 1931 (no date) by G. G. Neufeld
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 103.

Site Coordinates (lat/long): N49.19109, W97.76241
denoted by symbol on the map above

Sources:

“The Indian famine fund,” Winnipeg Tribune, 4 March 1897, page 4.

“Plum Coulee, Man,” Western Canada Fire Underwriters’ Association map, June 1911, Archives of Manitoba.

“Tenders for the building of a school,” Manitoba Free Press, 21 July 1919, page 12.

“Auction sale of school site, school buildings and furnace,” Manitoba Free Press, 21 February 1920, page 54.

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

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.

We thank Nathan Kramer for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 23 October 2023

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