Glencross School District #71
Located a few miles west of Range Five (the western limit of the area set aside for Mennonite settlement in 1873), the Glencross area was homesteaded by Scotch and English pioneers in the 1870’s and the 1880’s. Records in the Morden Land Titles office show the names Borthwick, Bedford, Bell, Bradley, Fraser, Johnston, McKay, Mitchell, Parker and Wilson. The same source reveals the change the neighboring Mennonite community brought about in the shadow of the Pembinas. Today names like Braun, Dyck, Fehr, Hildebrand, Hoeppner, Loewen, Thiessen, Suderman, Warkentin and Wiebe are the Glencross tax payers.
Historically Glencross is rich in Manitoba’s story, Alexander Henry passed that way early in the 19th century. He made his observations from D’Allard’s Point, a high point on the Pembinas two miles west of the Glencross school site. Prior to Henry the Indians used this point to send smoke signals to look-out points south to Walhalla and north to Miami.
From the same vantage point on any clear night the flats are ablaze with a sea of lights thanks to Manitoba Hydro.
When the Canadian government opened southern Manitoba for settlement to forestall any encroachment from the south the early settlers by-passed the flats for the Pembina Hills and beyond where trees for fuel and stone for building purposes were available. Soon a wagon trail appeared across the open prairies. To avoid straying from this trail in winter, the Mennonites placed oaken posts along it, hence the name Post Road was applied to it. The Glencross school was located alongside of this trail. In 1880 the Canadian government provided the area with mail service via the village of Reinland. Eight years later in 1888 a detachment of the' Northwest Mounted Police was stationed in Reinland. Beyond Glencross this road led on to Mountain City, Stevens, Nelsonville, and other points west.
The three school houses that served the young people of the community during the 91 years that the Glencross people operated their school tell their own stories. Rough-hewn local oak timbers were used in the construction of the first school house. Local residents were the master builders. Eleven years later hired stone masons shaped the boulders that local farmers hauled from their fields to the school yard and erected a sturdy stone school-house. In 1941 a master carpenter supervised the construction of a modern frame-building with furnace and indoor-toilets for the Glencross school children.
The actual cache co-ordinates are N49 06.ABC W098 05.DEF.
A = last digit in the year Mr. Bend taught?
B = last digit in the year J.W. Driedger taught?
C = last digit in the year Wilfred B. Brown taught?
D = last digit in the year J.B. Steward taught?
E = third digit in the year school opened?
F = Add the school district numbers together?
Congrats to Abeja2 on being FTF!
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