Inside the Old New Glarus Grade School
For nearly a century New Glarus children climbed its staircases, crowded its hallways, and learned penmanship, speed reading and elocution in classrooms beneath ceilings that seemed impossibly high. The former school was more than a building. It became a warehouse of community memories.
For generations of New Glarus children, the old brick school on Sixth Avenue was enormous.
Its ceilings seemed impossibly high. Its staircases were wide and imposing. Winter clothes cooked dry on radiators and heaters. Basketballs sometimes refused to bounce where they were supposed to. Bats occasionally appeared in dark hallways. Outside waited playground equipment that would horrify a modern risk manager.
And somewhere in the building was always another corner, room, stairway or attic space waiting to become part of somebody’s childhood.
The former New Glarus Public School and High School at 413 Sixth Ave. served the community for nearly a century. Built beginning in 1896 and occupied by students in 1897, it changed repeatedly as New Glarus grew, eventually becoming both an elementary and high school before returning to elementary-only use. It closed as a school in 1995 but survived through conversion to apartments.
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