Marshall Schools History

Susan Tracy, in the summer of 1845, began basic instruction of the three “R’s.”  A brick schoolhouse, spacious enough for 70 students, was built in 1849.  This building was used until 1925 for elementary education.

 

By the mid 1860s, Marshall sought to establish a private academy, the chief college preparatory schools of the times.  The Marshall Academy was completed in 1866 and opened January 2, 1867.  Eighty students were enrolled by the middle of first term--some from the area and some from as far away as New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota.  Deep financial difficulties struck the school by 1869.  Stockholders were forced to sell the Academy to the Augustana College & Seminary of Illinois.  For several years dissension plagued the Synod, of nationality and religious complications, until 1881 when the Synod moved to Iowa.  In 1885 the local school district purchased the property, and the following year, the Medina Free High School was established.  The Academy Building was used for 44 years, and then a new facility was constructed.

 

Marshall’s reputation for educational excellence had been well known, but in 1912, Marshall High School was the first in Wisconsin; and one of the first in the nation to introduce a systematic four-year course in agriculture.

 

The Band Boosters organization was created in 1944 to promote interest in the school bands and to help purchase uniforms and other incidentals not allowed for in the school budget.  In 1955 the group changed its name to Music Mothers to include choral and non-instrumental departments.  This group is still extremely active today.

 

One Hundred Fifteen years of education to the area youth brought great changes.  As districts consolidated and merged, the one-room schools known to all began to disappear.  Marshall’s Public School leaped to new grounds in 1960 with an addition of 13 rooms and new curriculum.  Twenty-five classes were being offered to high school students, along with foreign language for the first time.  As the needs and enrollment grew, expansion was necessary.  In 1967 a 42,000 sq. ft. high school was built, and six years later an expansion was necessary.  In 1994, what is known as the Early Learning Center was built to meet the needs of the 4-year-old program through 2nd-graders.  Marshall Schools functioned with three buildings, until the fall of 1999 when a new high school was built.  A few years later, in August of 2004, a new Elementary School was built.  The old Elementary/Junior High School building was demolished that same fall.