Site and Scene
Volume 4, Number 1
Fall 2002
Architect’s rendering of the restored Oneida Stake Academy building. |
Beginning with the establishment of the Brigham Young Academy in Provo in 1875, the Church developed a series of academies in a corridor from Canada to Mexico to address the educational needs of Church members. In the 1880s, with the Edmunds-Tucker Act pending legal review by the Supreme Court, and with the influence of the federal government on the rise, religious training was effectively excluded from the public schools.
In 1888, Wilford Woodruff, Chairman of the Church Board of Education, wrote to all LDS stakes, including the Oneida Stake in southern Idaho, counseling formation of a stake board of education and decreeing it was “the duty of these boards to take into consideration the formation of church schools.”
The Saints in the Oneida Stake in Preston, Idaho, responded financially, and plans for an attractive academy building to be constructed of cut stone were prepared by Church Architect Don Carlos Smith. Male members of the stake were called on missions to quarry and haul the stone. Construction on the building was completed and the Academy dedicated by Elder Moses Thatcher of the Quorum of the Twelve on 28 July 1895.
The Oneida Stake Academy has many distinguished alumni who have had an immeasurable influence on the Church including LDS Church presidents Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson. (See Harold B. Lee’s reminiscences on page 6.)
The Oneida Stake Academy, Preston, Idaho, April 2002. Besides the newly restored Brigham Young Academy building in Provo, Utah, the Oneida building is the only one remaining from the LDS Church academy system. Photograph by Alexander L. Baugh. |
In the 1950s, the local high school was constructed just a few feet from the academy building, blocking its view from the street, and necessitating the removal of its original entrance steps. The academy has had its friends over the years who have attended to and preserved the building in a reasonable condition while hidden behind the high school. But the Oneida Academy, one of only two remaining original Church academy buildings, may be in the last months of existence. The Preston School Board has decided that it must expand into the space presently occupied by the building and has announced that it must either be moved or it will be demolished in the spring of 2003.
With funding by the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, a comprehensive architectural feasibility study has been completed and bids have been solicited from two national firms deemed capable of moving the 1,800-ton masonry structure. The Church has agreed to make available a portion of the Benson Park on Oneida Street in Preston at no cost to receive the structure. However, the cost of renovation will be approximately $1,000,000, and the cost of moving this unique structure two city blocks to its new home are in excess of $1,100,000. Excavation and a new foundation to support this substantial structure will be approximately $300,000, putting the cost of the completed project at approximately $2,500,000.
Friends of the Academy, a community-based volunteer group with whom the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation is working, has secured approximately ten percent of the amount needed. This is the most time-critical project with which the Foundation has been associated. Substantial donations to this unique project will be gratefully received.
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Copyright © Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, 2006. All Rights Reserved. |