By Ed Shannon, staff writer

Sesquicentennial observances are continuing, and this year Freeborn County and the Albert Lea school system can both commemorate their 150th anniversaries.

Back in 1857 when the county was organized, the village of Albert Lea had a dozen buildings and an estimated 50 people which included about 20 children.

One of those buildings was a small structure with a door and three windows, which had been built for use as a store and never used. It was located at the southwest corner of what&8217;s now East William Street and Elizabeth Avenue.

Austin G. Clark was the first teacher in what became the Albert Lea school system. He taught the students in what could be considered a glorified log cabin. The students sat on three long backless wooden slabs from Ruble&8217;s Mills near the new dam which created Fountain Lake. A wide slab on wooden pegs was the only desk. An old box stove was used to heat the small building. This school started its very first session on Dec. 5, 1857, with a book or slate being pounded on the window frame instead of a bell. Reportedly the only bell in the community at that time was hanging on a rope around the neck of a cow.

During the next school year the school&8217;s location was changed to what&8217;s now East Clark Street and about where Pieper&8217;s Western Store was located. Mrs. A.C. Wedge, wife of a pioneer doctor, was the teacher.

For the school year of 1859-60 the school again changed locations to what was then called the Webber House at the corner of West Main Street and South Broadway Avenue. The Bible Book and Gift and the Heritage Coffee Shop are now at this location.

What has to rank as the most unusual school year in Albert Lea took place in 1860-61. The best explanation of what happened was written by one of the students, Martin V. Kellar, as a contribution for the 1911 History of Freeborn County. He wrote:

&8220;We now come to the most memorable school ever taught in Albert Lea – the winter term of 1860-61. A Miss Rice was teacher and though a most estimable young lady, she had no more control over a number of the very large boys than us farmers have over a pen of hungry pigs. No room could stand the knocks of that crowd more than a few weeks, which resulted in our school being held in three different places, and at last to be suddenly closed, and all the books left at the old Webber House, where the owners could get them. This school began in a small office (near the corner of West Clark Street and South Broadway Avenue where Taco King is now located) … then to a two-story building on West Clark Street, now torn down (present site of Home Federal Savings Bank). The first and second floors, respectively, were used. When the owner became dissatisfied with the destruction, which didn&8217;t take long, our school was moved to another two-story vacant store, standing on Broadway and Main Streets (present site of Midwest Antiques). Both first and second floors, respectively, were used, when one Monday morning we found the building closed. This school (year), however, bore good fruit, for a building fever struck the whole community. &8216;A school house&8217; was the slogan on every tongue.&8221;

After drifting around the community in six locations during its first four years, the pioneer school system was ready for a significant change. The resulting decision, inspired by the parents who wanted something better for their children&8217;s education, resulted in an appropriation of $400 for a news building to be used exclusively for a school house.

However, the location of this new school house resulted in some controversy. The site selected was near the corner of what&8217;s now West Clark Street and West Avenue and across from Central Park. Folks felt this site was &8220;so far out on the prairie&8221; from what was then a much smaller Albert Lea. And between this supposedly isolated new school building and the town center near the corner of St. Mary Avenue and Clark street was a low swampy place which supposedly caused problems for students on bad weather days.

Albert Lea&8217;s first real school house was ready for use on Oct. 1, 1861. It&8217;s location was also to become the hub of the city&8217;s educational system for nearly 14 decades.

By the school year of 1868-69, the school building became crowded with students. This was a clear indication that Albert Lea&8217;s population was starting to increase. As a temporary solution, a former wagon shop on South Newton Avenue, at the present site of the post office, was rented and used as the school for the younger children. Henry Thurston taught the older students at the West Avenue location and his wife was the teacher at the Newton Avenue school.

This split in educational facilities became the start of a division into a graded system and a conversion from a rural- or country-type school.

A two-story wooden frame building on what was evolving at the site of what became Albert Lea&8217;s central school was ready for use in the fall of 1870. This structure even had a bell tower.

The further expansion of the school system to accommodate an increasing number of students came in 1872 with the addition of a second two-story wooden building at the West Avenue site.

In 1881 two events became

significant factors in the history of Albert Lea&8217;s school system.

First, came the advent of the brick and mortar era with the building of a more substantial structure on West Avenue. Second, a special act by the Minnesota Legislature created the Albert Lea School District.

Also, by this time a high school was operating and the first two students, L.A. Brown and R.S. Farnsworth, graduated in 1884, according to records in the archives at the Freeborn County Historical Museum Library.