Manitoba Municipal Heritage Site No. 43
Designation Date: April 11, 1990
Designation Authority: The R.M. of Rossburn
Present owner: The R.M. of Rossburn
Location: NW 23-20-23W
Although not the earliest school, the Marconi School is the only one in the area that has been restored and designated as a historic site.
While one-room schools built after World War I were, like their nineteenth century cousins, modest in size and appointments, the various design and construction developments that had attended them over just twenty years transformed them.
At a school like Marconi, built in 1922 and named after Guglielmo Marconi who developed wireless telegraphy, these changes are immediately apparent. The standardized design, produced by the Department of Education, was adapted from domestic styles of the day, which favoured a cottage look, and the placement of shingles (rather than horizontal siding) on the walls. The J.J. Crow Lumber Co. in Rossburn built the school for $3,201 with the help of carpenter Frank Kennedy and local farmers who used horses and wagons for the 15 mile haul and were paid $6 per trip.
The school opened with 69 students and closed with eleven. The first teacher's monthly salary was $100 and the last was $237, with drops in the '30's and '40's as low as $45/month.
It is now restored and is used as a museum. Visit this impressive site on the Biking, Back Roads and Buddas self-guided tour (opens new window)
For more information contact the RM of Rossburn at
Box 100
Rossburn, MB
