Description of Historic Place

The Stone School is a Municipal Heritage Property occupying one lot at 215 Souris Street in the Town of Yellow Grass. The property features a two-storey stone building constructed in 1903.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Stone School lies in its role in the development of educational facilities in Yellow Grass, and in its association with the community’s pioneers. Constructed in the same year as Yellow Grass's incorporation as a village, the Stone School replaced an earlier wood-frame schoolhouse that the burgeoning settlement had quickly outgrown. Built from stones gathered in nearby fields, the Stone School’s substantial construction reflected the community’s increasing prosperity, optimism for the future, and the importance it placed on education. With its Georgian Classical-influenced architectural style, this sturdy stone structure projects an air of order and decorum, qualities well-suited to a school building.

The Stone School was Yellow Grass’s only educational facility until 1913, when a new, larger school was built. The stone school’s classrooms were still used periodically, however, until 1927, when the new school was expanded. In the ensuing years, the old school was, at various times, a jail, town hall, and rural municipal office, as well as a meeting place for the Masons, Order of the Eastern Star, and Lions Club. Today, the building continues to serve its community as the town library.

Source:

Town of Yellow Grass Bylaw No. 182.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Stone School resides in the following character-defining elements:
-elements that reflect the building’s use as an early twentieth-century school, including the banks of windows in the eastern wall; the foyers and cloakrooms on the first and second floors; and period construction materials, such as shake shingles, four-pane windows; interior mouldings, v-joint walls, and doorways surmounted by transom windows;
-elements that express the building’s Georgian Classical-influenced architecture, including its symmetrical composition, hip roof, front gable with elliptical window, centrally-positioned entrance with segmented transom window; and the symmetrical arrangement of the windows on the façade, including the round-headed windows on the ground floor;
-elements that speak to the building’s association with the community’s early residents, including its location on its original site, the fieldstone construction; and the upstairs meeting room.