50 North Third Street
Santiam School Gymnasium on October 21, 2006
Lebanon’s first school was started in 1852 in a log cabin on Main Street, across from what is now Academy Square. A small wood-frame structure was built in 1853, leading to the establishment of Santiam Academy by the Methodist Episcopal Church on January 18, 1854 by an act of Oregon’s territorial legislature. The school grew quickly, leading to the need for a larger school building. Jeremiah Ralston, an original trustee of the Santiam Academy, donated five acres of land on August 6, 1857. Morgan Kees, another original trustee, donated another five acres on November 4, 1857. Before the land was donated, a two-story school building had been built on the site.
Notable graduates of Santiam Academy include Oregon congressman Judge M.C. George, Surveyor-General of Oregon General W.H. Odel, and Judge Owen Denny, Consul-General to China and later a legal advisor to the Emperor of Korea. In the early 1870s, Santiam Academy had an enrollment of over 150 students.
Santiam Academy operated until 1904, by which time public schools had made the Santiam Academy unnecessary. The Methodist Church sold the building to the Lebanon School District, and it remained standing until it was demolished in 1936. Some of the materials were used to build a Girl Scout building at Queen Anne Elementary (closed in 2002), and the bell was hung in the cupola of the high school.
In 1944, the Lebanon School District built a new elementary school on the site of the old Santiam Academy. The new school was called Santiam Grade School. When the school opened in January, 1945, it consisted of four classrooms, an office and a restroom. Two more classrooms were added later in the year, a multipurpose room in 1952, four more classrooms and a restroom in 1953, and a gymnasium in 1978.
Santiam School Gymnasium on October 21, 2006
Santiam School closed in June, 1982 as the population of Lebanon declined. The school was used for daycare and preschool, and the gym was rented out for use by the Boy Scouts and Boys & Girls Club. In 2002, the school was demolished and the grounds turned into a 5.37 acre park. The gymnasium remained for use by community organizations.
Due to the city's plans to build a 25,000 square foot Emergency Operations Center on this site to house the police department, city courts and information systems, the gymnasium was demolished in April 2008.
Related Links:
Santiam Academy History by Lebanon School District
Santiam Elementary History by Lebanon School District
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My Name is Scott Stevens and I was a student at Santiam School from September 1958 until June 1964 and the gymnasium was there all those years, so your statement that the gym was added in 1978 is false. Since The Lebanon School district has taken its entry on the history of Santiam School, it's hard to find anything at all about the School.
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