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Demolition has started on historic Fauver Hill School, a building that Gundersen Health System has owned since 1999 and once used as a clinic. The future of the 3-acre plot hasn't been decided, but Fauver Hill fans will be able to buy commemorative bricks from the Onalaska Education Foundation. Fauver Hill's original entry includes the school's name and date built, artifacts that will go to the Onalaska School District. Flagpole's planting is etched in stone. 
ONALASKA â People who feel a nostalgic catch in their throats when driving past the old Fauver Hill School and seeing that it is being demolished hold onto a little piece of it by buying a brick for old timeâs sake.

Gundersen Health System, which has owned the building at Hwy. 16 and South Coulee Kinney Road since 1999, began deconstruction this week. Gundersen used the building as a clinic and health education center for several years, and more recently it has been repurposed for storage.

The nearly 3-acre plot, which once held the school on a perch surrounded by nothing but farm fields, trees and bluffs as far as the eye could see, will become green space until Gundersen officials decide what to do with it, according to a statement from Gundersen.

Students recall the school in its heyday, a time Eddie Allen remembers the building as being âout in the country. It had four bright, airy, sparkling-clean classrooms.

âWhen the Venetian blinds were raised to the top of the huge windows, you could gaze out onto giant oak trees on the playground and beyond to the endless farm fields and pastures dappled with gorgeous, grazing Guernseys,â Allen, a retired writer, recalled in an essay about the school he began attending in 1958.

Itâs a fair assumption that Fauver Hill teachers noticed Allenâs flair as a word merchant and nurtured it, judging from picturesque descriptions such as this: âIn the distance were lush bluffs with sandstone outcroppings that formed a verdant backdrop for chugging freight trains wending their way through the valley of the La Crosse River headed to big cities in far-off places I had only heard of. Madison. Milwaukee. Chicago.

âIt was my school, my world. And it was built of clear blue sky and daydreams,â wrote Allen, who added during a Facebook interview Thursday, âIâm saddened to see the place go down.â

He is not alone, judging from the fact that more than 1,000 people turned out to pay tribute to the school on May 15, 1999, shortly after Gundersen had bought it and a few weeks before it closed after the final day of kindergarten.

Gundersen officials mulled cleaning and renovating the building, which is adjacent to the hospital systemâs Renal Dialysis Center, but doing so âwas deemed too costly and unsustainable,â according to a Gundersen statement.

Indeed, a peek inside the building Wednesday revealed substantial amounts of mold, as well as asbestos installed in the days before it was labeled a health hazard.

Recognizing the historical and emotional significance of the structure, Gundersen is partnering with the city of Onalaska, the Onalaska School District and the Onalaska Education Foundation to preserve historic parts, including the cornerstone, some signs and bricks the foundation will sell.

After Gundersen approached the district with the idea, Superintendent Fran Finco approached the foundation, asking whether it was game for using the bricks as a fundraiser for its mission of supporting both public and private schools.

âThey said theyâd love to,â so the district OKâd having the bricks delivered there for storage as the foundation prepares plans to sell them, Finco said.

Other artifacts the district will receive include the schoolâs name and 1924, the year the building was constructed, etched in stone and implanted above the schoolâs original front door. The district will display the sign as an homage to Fauver Hill, Finco said.

Gundersen also is crating up for posterity a brick and stone sign that labeled the school.

The foundation is expected to announce when and where the bricks will be available, as well as the cost. They are expected to include authenticity certificates.

The schoolâs beginnings trace to 1867, when it was established for the town of Campbell, according to La Crosse Public Library archives. That Campbell School building was sold, and a new school was built, in 1879 on land that David Fauver donated.

Still called Campbell School, it had one teacher who taught first through eighth grades. The name was changed to Fauver Hill School in 1919 to honor Fauver â and to acknowledge that it was situated on perhaps the highest point of his farm and lumber holdings, informally referred to as Fauver Hill.

After Fauver Hill School became part of the Onalaska School District in 1960, the district continued its use as an elementary school until 1983, when it became the Fauver Hill Kindergarten Center with a new mission: to accommodate all the kindergartners in the district, according to the archives.

A memory book published to commemorate the schoolâs closing included the solution to the mystery of the missing hamster.

Erin Shanley, a fifth-grader in 1999, recalled that she was a kindergartner at Fauver Hill when Mrs. Hawleyâs class had a nice, friendly hamster.

âNear the end of the year, we lost her because someone forgot to lock the cage tightly,â Shanley said. âWe never found her that year. We looked for like the rest of the year and during the summer people missed her a lot.â

Almost unbelievably, the hamster was back for another year of kindergarten the next year, after Shanley had advanced to first grade.

As it turned out, the janitor found the hamster meandering down the hall early one morning before school started.

âWe figured that she was outside the whole summer and she got back in during a recess when the classes were coming back into the school,â Shanley wrote for the memory book.

Oh, if those bricks could talk, the tales they could tell. But former students and fans will be able to buy one for the memories.


Following are some significant dates in Fauver Hill School’s history, as well as some that are just interesting.

1867: Lucy C. Johnson is the first teacher at a one-room school with five students. The log building, in a pasture near the intersection of Hwys. OS and 16, has no indoor plumbing, and water is drawn from an outdoor pump. School is in session for five months that year and the building is heated with four cords of wood.

1870: School is in session for four months in the winter and three months in the summer. Nonresidents pay $1 a month tuition.

1877: This year's purchases include six desks for $27, a sink for $1.40 and stove and pipe for $30.50.

1878: Voters decide to build a new school in a new location. The site selected is on the line of David Fauver and John Johnson properties.

1879: The new schoolhouse is built at the current site on land donated by David Fauver. Joseph French buys the old schoolhouse for $10, and the outbuildings and shed are sold for an additional $1.50 to H. Bonsack. Campbell school is constructed using funds from a $400 tax levy. An additional $300 is raised to complete the project.

1880: A school bell is added at a cost of $7.30.

1887: A new globe is purchased for $8.50

1888: Joint School District No. 3 consisting of Onalaska and Campbell is formed.

1889: A new furnace is installed in the basement for $160.50.

1890: A special meeting is convened to approve the purchase of an organ for $32.50.

1894: A well is drilled.

1900: The schoolhouse needs new shingles at a cost of $12.

1904: A motion is made to hire a new female teacher for $50 a month.

1908: The budget includes a new chimney that cost $22.50.

1919: The name is changed from Campbell School to Fauver Hill in honor of the man who donated the land.

1924: A new school is built. Part of the present brick building is constructed as a one-room schoolhouse at a cost of $8,900.

1951: A telephone is installed at the school.

1957: Classrooms are added to the original structure at a cost of $90,000.

1966: Four rooms are added.

1974: A gymnasium is constructed for indoor play.

1975: The Onalaska School District is the area's fastest-growing district. Two classrooms are converted into a library.

1983: Fauver Hill is established as the district's kindergarten center.

1992: An outdoor gazebo is constructed.

1998: The children that will make up the graduating class of 2011 walk through the doors of Fauver Hill. They will be last students to attend the "little brick schoolhouse."

Source:  La Crosse Tribune, May 10, 1999

+46 From Tribune files: 46 buildings in the La Crosse area that no longer exist

Old La Crosse Post Office

Old La Crosse County Courthouse

Mary E. Sawyer Auditorium

Germania Hall

Allis Chalmers

Krauseâs Kabin Kourt

Wilson's Boarding House

La Crosse Soda Water Factory and Berlin Weiss Beer Brewery

F. W. Woolworth Co. 5 and 10-Cent Store

The No. 2 Fire Station

The Penguin Drive-In

William Welch grocery store

Town House Motel

Second Ward School

Evans Cartage warehouse

Norby grocery store and gas station

Johnnies Bar & Grill

Pomeroy Opera House

Blue Tiger Lounge

North Star Drive-In

South Avenue Cafeteria

Stoddard Hotel

Party House


Chop House


Nutbush City Limits

Yum Yum Tree


1976: Ben Franklin

Mr. D's Donuts


Embers Restaurant

Varsity Club

1972: King Cinema

Sandy's Drive-In

Bartl Brewery

Ivy Inn

Montgomery Wards

1965: Dog House Restaurant

Swiss Chateau

Henry's Drive-In


Hotel Law

Western Spinning Mills

Maxâs Auto Wrecking Co.
 Mike Tighe


Mike Tighe is the Tribune newsroom's senior citizen. That said, he don't get no respect from the cub reporters as he goes about his duly-appointed rounds on the health, religion and whatever-else-lands-in-his-inbox beats. Call him at 608-791-8446.

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