File:Schools - West End Elementary School on Brunswick Street in 1906.jpg

This was the then new West End Elementary School on Brunswick Street in 1906.

In 1890, farmer and landowner William Waltman Wenner donated an acre of land for a one-room brick schoolhouse on the site of the present VFW Post, Masonic Hall and Post Office.

In 1905, a 2-story, 8-room edifice was built on the same property and became one of two grade schools in Brunswick until the consolidated elementary school was constructed in 1952. It became known as the West End school. In 1923, the Petersville and St. Mark’s schools merged with West End Elementary. The board of education paid for bus transportation.

Richard Harrington, who was a student at the school in 1928, remembers that in the entrance hall of the school, there was a display case featuring local Indian artifacts, including various tone tools, hammer heads as big as fists, arrowheads and axes. We wonder where those artifacts are today?

(Photo courtesy of Phil Graves; information from Brunswick: 100 Years of Memories by the Brunswick History Commission)

Bob Cage: I attended this school in the first grade. Before the year was over we moved to the new elementary school. We walked to the new school, each of us carrying books. Miss Hood was our 1st grade teacher.

Gloria Moore Crowl: My first grade class was in the front next to the steps. Moved to BES while in 2nd grade..