Three Lakes School/Demmer Library

Where the Demmer Memorial Library stands used to be the place for the original Three Lakes school. Eventually, the school moved just a bit further south on School Street where it remains today.

In 1894, construction finished on the three-story schoolhouse in Three Lakes, standing where the Demmer Memorial Library is currently located. This represented the beginning of the end of one-room schoolhouses in the surrounding areas. By 1902, three teachers were hired to teach in the school for the upper, intermediate, and primary departments to accommodate the growing town population. The first graduating class of the Three Lakes school occurred in this wooden schoolhouse in 1923, while a new brick schoolhouse was being constructed.

Once the brick school was finished, the old wooden school was sold and dismantled. The new building had classrooms for all 12 grades, as well as a band room, economics room, gymnasium, a library, an auditorium, and an art room. By 1939 a new gym was built during the Roosevelt Administration as part of the U.S. government WPA project, as well as an additional three classrooms including a music room, science lab, and a shop.

In the 1940s a new school district was built between the towns of Three Lakes, Sugar Camp, Monico, and Piehl, since Three Lakes was the only town at the time with a high school. With the increased enrollment at the Three Lakes school, more rooms were needed; a new wing was added in 1954. 

Voters disagreed on a proposed new school in the 1960s until 1966 when a new high school was added to the old building. The High School was finished with additional classrooms, a K-8 library, and a cafeteria in 1978.