PARKCITYLIFE / Back in the Day
PARKCITYLIFE / Department
HIGHER EDUCATION
FROM MINING TOWN TO MOUNTAIN RESORT, PC’S SCHOOLS HAVE KEPT PACE. / VANESSA CONABEE
PARK CITY’S SCHOOLS historically reflected the highs and lows of the the town’s economy. The first school in Park City was the Ontario School, a one-room schoolhouse for the children of the first mining camps in 1875. With the silver boom came hundreds of new prospectors, and the mining camps grew into a town of boarding houses, mills, stores, saloons and theaters. By the 1880s families had joined the prospectors, establishing homes and founding schools such as St. Mary’s, operated by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. So many families flocked to Park City during the silver boom that the city built three new schools—Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. When the mines closed during the Great Depression, the population declined and the school district merged the three schools into one building. In 1936 a New Deal program broke ground
on the Marsac Mill and the Marsac School the same fall. The school was deemed a “modern marvel,’”containing 24 rooms and an assembly hall for 200 that doubled as a gymnasium. Modern features included an automatic bell system controlled by a master clock, showers in the rest rooms, a thermostatically controlled heating system and air-conditioning. The structure housed first through eighth grades, had 18 teachers and 750 students. Marsac School ran successfully for 44 years until the students outgrew the building in the 1980s. Park City purchased the Marsac School and renovated it as offices for the city, the police department and the community radio station. It’s now the rehabilitation award-winning Marsac Building, better known as City Hall. And Park City School District, funded by a growing resort and real estate economy, is considered among Utah’s best educational systems. PARKCITYLIFE SEPT/OCT 2016
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