Description of Historic Place

The Wakaw Elementary School is a Municipal Heritage Property situated on one commercial lot in the Town of Wakaw. The property features a stuccoed, two-storey building built in 1949, a one-room school house that was moved to its current location in 1974, and a small wood-frame, one-storey commercial building.

Heritage Value

The Wakaw Elementary School is valued for its association with public education in Wakaw and area. After World War II, the Wakaw School Division, like many others in Saskatchewan, sought to improve the quality of education by consolidating several rural schools into centralized facilities. Constructed in 1949, this multi-functional facility was built to serve the educational needs of elementary school students in the Wakaw area. The one-room school, originally located in a nearby rural area and used until the early 1950s, also speaks to the public education process and the changes that took place in the post-war period.

Today, the property continues its public education role through its use as a museum. In addition to the school buildings, the property also features the small, wood-frame law office building used by John G. Diefenbaker, Canada’s 13th Prime Minister, during his period of practise in Wakaw during the 1920s. Combined, these buildings serve to inform local residents and visitors of the history of Wakaw and area through their physical form and by housing artifacts for research and display.

Source:

Town of Wakaw Bylaw No. 2/06.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Wakaw Elementary School resides in the following character-defining elements:
- those interior features which reflect the use of the two school buildings as elementary schools, such as the division of the interior space into classrooms, central hallways and banks of large window openings;
- those elements which speak to the use of the property as a museum, including the open interior spaces for displaying and storing artifacts related to Wakaw’s early history, and Diefenbaker’s personal belongings releted to his law practice in the community, such as his desk, chair and law textbooks.