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Show Early Am. Fork School Building Being Razed I By the end; of this week, the old Forbes school building, will be no: more. Tiiis red brick structure, the first central, building built in. American Amer-ican Fork for all school purposes on the north end of the school lot, has housed many of our townspeople townspeo-ple who have studied within its kindly wralls to master the three 'Rs, and many have since fared Into In-to the rorld and built upon the educational foundation provided within this building,, honor for themselves and their kin. in various j chosen vocations. The razing of the- Forbes building is in keeping with the Alpine district dist-rict school building- program which provided for an addition of four rooms and basement to the Harrington Harring-ton school building and a new administration ad-ministration building. The entire north end of the school grounds will be used for a playground; eliminating elim-inating the hazards of children playing in the adjoining streets. The Forbes school, then known as the American Fork Public school, was built in 1892, when the increase In population of American Fork city necessitated a larger and more modem building, the primative school buildings of the cornmunlty having become inadequate. By tho middle of 1860 the building of a combined school house and meeting house, known as Science Hall', was commenced and completed by the following year. Thirty years later the necessity for a larger building was felt. Later It was named "The Forbes School" In honor of Joseph B. Forbes, one of the city's e-crly educator's. Chipman Mercantile company of this city was awarded the contract for the razing of the Forbes school and the building of the addition to the Harrington building. Tolboe1 and Letohfield of Provo, were awarded award-ed the contract for the admin istra-J tion building. Wednesday morning both firms commenced the excavation excava-tion work on the two buildings. All labor is provided from the PWA rolls which has made possible this school project. The wrecking of the I Forbes building commenced last Fri- day and will be completed by the end of the week. The brick and all material possible is being salvaged sal-vaged for use in the new buildings. John Hunter, of the Chipman building department, is in charge j of the wrecking and construction j work. It is a striking co-incident i that Mr. Hunter is not only instru- mental in bringing the structure to 1 the ground but had an important j hand in its construction as well, j i While but a young man In his late j teens he labored with his father, i the late Ebenezer Hunter, as a stone mason. Mr. Hunter was employed em-ployed as stone mason on the build-under build-under Sidney Belmont of Provo, who was in charge of the stone work. A man by the name of Olsen of Provo, Mr. Hunter recalls, was in charge of the brick work, and the Smoot Lumber company of Provo, with Moroni Paxman, son of the late William Paxman, American Fork pioneer, were the lumber contractors. con-tractors. Mr. Paxman was superintendent superin-tendent of the carpenter work. It took a year to complete the structure struc-ture and is taking less than a week to dismantle and remove. |