Description of Historic Place

South Star School is a Municipal Heritage Property located within the Rural Municipality of Star City No. 428 approximately 12 kilometres south of the Town of Star City. The property features a wood-frame, one-room country school and a small wood-frame house both constructed in 1914, surrounded by a hedgerow.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the South Star School lies in its role as an educational complex. The complex was built in 1914 to serve the educational needs, of the Hamlet of South Star. Constructed following a standard Waterman & Waterbury design, the school building features wood-frame construction, distinctive front dormer and eastside window wall. Like many rural school districts, South Star obtained a design from Waterman and Waterbury, a Minnesota company that provided school plans for school district across the Great Plains. The property also features a small, wood-frame house which once housed the school’s teacher. Many of these once-common structures were destroyed after their associated schools were closed. As such, the South Star teacherage remains one of the few in Saskatchewan standing on its original site. After the school’s closure in 1963, the community chose to retain the complex to commemorate the important role the property, and the thousand of one-room schools like it, made to the educational life of Saskatchewan residents.

The heritage value also lies in its continued use as a community gathering place. The Hamlet of South Star initially grew around the school and, as the first public building, the property became an important venue for local events of all kinds. When the school closed, the South Star Community Club acquired the property and continues to use it for local events.

Source:

Rural Municipality of Star City No. 428 Bylaw 2-85.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the South Star School resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements that reflect the property’s use as an educational facility, including the simple wood-frame construction and form of the buildings, the school’s east window wall, front dormer and interior blackboard, and the proximately of the teacherage to the school;
-those elements that reflect the property’s status as a place of community gathering, including its position on its original location and the open interior layout of the school building.