“Columbus School, Once Pride of East Side, Now Resigned to Fate—the Wrecker’s Sledge.”

From the Minneapolis Tribune, May 12, 1936

[article is accompanied by a photograph of the abandoned, and vandalized, Columbus School brick building at Winter and O Sts.]

Transcribed by Connie Sullivan

“The wrecker’s sledge will be swinging in a few days against the brick walls of Columbus elementary school at O and Winter streets, in the heart of the east side industrial district.

“The board of education Monday directed Business Superintendent George F. Womrath to proceed at once with the razing of the 29-year-old building abandoned as a school five years ago [1931], with funds provided by the WPA.

“Thirty years ago [1906] the site on which the school stands was donated to the city for school purposes by the Chute Realty Co., then interested in the development of the area lying immediately north of East Hennepin avenue as a residential district.

“The school was built in 1907 at a cost of $23,000. But the expected residential development never came. Instead, the surrounding territory began to sprout with mills and factories and railroad terminals. Families, rather than coming in, started moving out.

“Enrollment at Columbus reached a peak in 1917-18, when the four-room building oused an average of 139 pupils. From then on it declined steadily, dropping 10 years later to 64 and, in 1930-31, to 41.

“When the fall term opened in 1931, the school remained closed. Save for occasional periods when it served as living quarters for relief families, it has been shut ever since. Efforts by officials to sell it for industrial purposes have met with failure.”