In the summer of 1892, Porter Nye and his family set up a
homestead on the south shore of Lake Bemidji. The area was the
last territory in Minnesota to be opened for settlement, and the
logging boom was just beginning. According to local lore, Nye
used some of the first boards produced by a mill on the
Mississippi River between Lake Bemidji and Lake Irving to build
a small schoolhouse on his homestead. Nye also was the first
teacher at the school. In 1902, J. Custer Moore teamed up with
Nye to plat the 16-block town site of Nye-Moore, which evolved
to Nyemore and, now, Nymore. The next year, residents of the
village of Nymore passed a bond issue to build a wood frame
school at the corner of Fifth Street and Lincoln Avenue
Southeast. The community named the school after President
Abraham Lincoln. Also operating in Nymore was the four-grade
East School on the current site of Lincoln Elementary School at
1617 Fifth St. N.E. Land speculation took off after 1910 and the
original Lincoln School became overcrowded.