101 3rd Avenue Northwest
Kasson, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Kasson Public School

Statement of Significance:

The Kasson Public School served the community of Kasson, Minnesota, as its only educational institution for forty years, and is locally significant under National Register Criterion A for its association with the broad patterns of our history in the areas of education and social history. The Kasson Public School stood at the center of community life, providing space for instruction to children, grades kindergarten through high school, teaching the fundamentals that enabled them to take a productive place in the community as they grew into adulthood. The school also hosted an array of social services, such as public health programs and agricultural extension training, fulfilling changing public policy objectives on the state and federal level. As a social institution, it became part of the town’s daily rhythm of life — classes, sporting events, parent-teacher conferences, school plays and concerts, and adult education programs. The school is associated with the historic context entitled “Railroads and Agricultural Development, 1870- 1940,” one of the statewide historic contexts developed by the State Historic Preservation Office. The period of significance begins in 1918, the construction date of the school, and ends in 1954, when the local school district consolidated with the nearby Mantorville school district.

Historical Background
The area around present-day Kasson was first settled in the 1850s, but it remained a small crossroads hamlet until 1865, when the Winona and St. Peter Railroad was completed. The railroad was a major economic windfall, sought by several surrounding towns. Its final route was determined by the donation of land for a railroad station by Jabez Hyde Kasson. A native of New York, he had moved to Dodge County before 1860 and begun farming. He, along with Jonathan Owen and J. E. Bunker, platted the village of Kasson. By January 1866 a large grain elevator was built, followed by a restaurant, mercantile businesses, a saloon, and a hotel. By the end of the year Kasson had a post office and a local newspaper, the Dodge County Republican} The town grew rapidly. On February 24, 1870, the village of Kasson was incorporated. Within a decade, the town’s population reached 1,054, remaining near that number for the next seventy years. Its economy centered around agriculture, while the downtown served an area between the more substantial commercial centers of Owatonna on the west and Rochester on the east. During the period of the construction of the school, 1917-1918, the town was prospering from an agricultural boom spurred in part by World War I. Reflecting the good economy, several substantial new buildings sprang up, including the Kasson Municipal Building, (designed by the noted Minneapolis architectural firm of Purcell & Elmslie and placed on the National Register in 1982), the Kasson Hotel, and Saint John’s Lutheran Church. The Kasson Lumber Company organized to help supply local construction crews. In 1920, the Rochester Daily Bulletin described the community: “Kasson, which is located in the center of the finest farm district in Minnesota, is one of the most enterprising communities in this section, and its growth in population is not surprising.” The official 1920 census showed Kasson’s population was at 1,150 people.

Soon after settlement, Kasson area residents laid plans for the education of its young people. The first Kasson school house was a log structure built on Mantorville Avenue sometime before 1865. With the coming of the railroad, the area’s population grew dramatically, leading to construction of a new two-story school. This building, a brick structure dating from the late 1860s, is now a private residence and it sits across the street (south) from the 1918 school.

Kasson doubled in size during the 1870s, leading to construction of a new brick schoolhouse in the latter part of that decade. After a fire severely damaged the building in 1892, the school was remodeled. This newly refurbished school was described with some pride by the local newspaper as “one of the finest school buildings in southern Minnesota.” In 1895, a second story was added to the school with a belfry. This building continued in use for the next two decades. In the fall of 1916, however, state inspectors visited the school and recommended its replacement. The local newspaper reported: “Our high school building is not at all adequate to care for the demands upon it.... If we are to continue to receive state aid, we must either build another building large enough to house the several special departments and the high school... or tear down the present structure and build a new one.”

The thorny issue was decided for the school board. On the evening of June 20, 1917, a few weeks after school had been dismissed for the summer, a fire swept through the old structure. Only a heavy rain prevented the flames from spreading to nearby homes. “The loss,” declared the local newspaper, “is a heavy one and means that a new school building will have to be erected at once.”

In the wake ofthe fire, the school board quickly contacted the state to secure financial assistance, then proceeded to arrange alternative classrooms for the next school year. Although several architects were apparently considered, within two weeks, the school board hired Nels Jacobson to design the new school.

Nels Jacobson grew up in nearby Owatonna, the son of a local building contractor. After graduating from Owatonna public schools, he completed his education at the University of Pennsylvania. Returning to his hometown, he was joined in his architectural business by a brother, David, who was trained as a structural engineer. Only twenty-five at the time he was awarded the Kasson School job, this was one of Nels Jacobson’s first professional contracts. David would serve as the on-site supervisor. The local newspaper later reported, “Both of the young men have been fine fellows to work with on a contract of this magnitude and have done their best in their respective lines.”

Within a month, Jacobson presented his plans to the school board. The basic design was a three-part structure, with the elementary school in the south wing and the high school in the north wing. Rooms included a “gym, auditorium, stage, projection booth, balcony, boys’ lockers, girls’ lockers, grade rooms, recreation rooms, home rooms, classrooms, kindergarten, library, agriculture, industrial arts, home economics, commercial, band room, music, science, chemistry, biology, physics, offices, art, cafeteria, lunchroom, kitchen, toilet rooms, and growing rooms.

In late September, the board awarded the construction contract to Madsen and Peterson, a Minneapolis contractor. The total cost was $137,912. Construction apparently did not begin until the following spring, since the local newspaper reported on March 28, 1918, “Work on the new schoolhouse has started off in earnest this week.

A host of obstacles kept the work from moving forward with much speed. The country was at war with Germany and the government discouraged non-essential construction. School building starts in Minnesota fell off almost one-half in 1918, down to 145 new buildings from 270 in 1917 (and 281 in 1916). Even when approved, as the Kasson School was, materials were not always easy to acquire. For example, completion of the new steam heating plant was delayed until spring 1919.

The war intruded again in the fall of 1918, while the team was pressing to finish construction, when both Nels and David Jacobson entered military service, taking them away from Kasson for several months. In October, the Dodge County Republican reported: “David Jacobson, who has been clerk of /the works on the job of erecting the new schoolhouse here, went to his home at Owatonna and this week has joined the forces, going to one of the southern camps. At the same time, his brother took his departure.” Nels Jacobson did not return to the site until late January 1919

Despite the obstacles, on September 6, 1918, the board announced the school would be dedicated on the first of December. As the new school year rolled around, the building was still not complete, even after the district delayed the first day of classes until late September. When the board could wait no longer, the partially completed building opened with just the elementary grades occupying the southern portion. Since the steam boiler was not working yet, classes were canceled on several occasions as the weather turned bitter. Throughout the fall, high school classes continued to meet in City Hall.

Then, just when the anticipated dedication ceremony approached, another disaster struck. In late 1918, the so called “Great Influenza” swept across the globe. As cases began to appear in Minnesota, the local school board refused to act beyond issuing a directive that all children with flu symptoms be sent home. In late November, the growing epidemic forced the board to close the school for several weeks, while city fathers banned all public meetings. Instead of a grand celebration, school simply resumed quietly on December 5, 1918, with all classes now in the new building.

The building quickly won plaudits. In early January 1919, R. B. McLean, a state school inspector, and B. M. Gile, a supervisor for the federally funded Smith-Hughes agricultural school programs, visited and filed a positive report. Later, H. H. Flynn, a state high school inspector, also looked over the new building. The local newspaper reported, “These men all expressed their admiration for the beauty and conveniences of the new building and all thought that Kasson has every reason to be proud of their fine edifice.”" No report was more enthusiastic than that of Samuel Challman, the first state inspector of school buildings and probably the man most knowledgeable about new school buildings in Minnesota. Typically, a tough-minded advocate of strict construction standards, Challman was effusive in his praise of the new school. The Republican carried news of his visit to Kasson in May 1919, noting:

Mr. S. A. Challman, state inspector of school buildings, made the Kasson school a visit on Wednesday last and went into ecstasies over the structure erected here the past year. He says there is nothing equal to it in the state in the way of completeness and architectural design. He wanted a photo of it so that he could use it upon his letterheads. He stated that it was the first of its type — three separate units, connected with a corridor, to be built in the state, but said it would an ideal pattern for others who could not resist the temptation when once they saw this model structure.’^

An editorial writer for the Rochester Post and Record also pointed to the school as an example of the future of education in small-town Minnesota; “The era of the little red schoolhouse is rapidly passing. We are now coming to the popularity of the consolidated school, with its facilities for educational training. For architectural beauty and ornate simplicity, the triple school buildings of Kasson, with their artistic brick bond, their well-balanced symmetry, and their spacious grounds will command the admiration of everyone.”'^ The Kasson Public School was the beginning of a distinguished career for Nels Jacobson. Soon after its completion, he began work on a new school for Owatonna, completed in 1921. That building repeated the general floor plan of the earlier school, with three sections joined by connecting corridors. The Owatonna School, however, was on a much grander scale. Praised by the Minneapolis Journal as a “masterpiece,” it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. With his brother, he then formed the architectural firm of Jacobson & Jacobson, which designed numerous school buildings over the next two decades, including high schools in Albert Lea, Hopkins, Anoka, Shakopee, Granite Falls, Monticello, and Cokato, Minnesota; Charles City, Iowa; and Lake Wahpeton, North Dakota. He died in 1947