Old Brick leads the way for public education

GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Area Public School District was founded in 1856, with the establishment of the Sale School.

The first city-owned, public school was built on the east side of the Fox River on what became 523 Howe Street.

At that time, the Fort Howard military base — situated on the west side of the river — offered tuition-based education but functioned independently from the east side.

The Sale School was constructed on land donated by John Jacob Astor, a fur trader who began purchasing land, becoming more synonymous with New York in later years.

Astor founded the town of Astor; Astor was later united with the town of Navarino to form the city of Green Bay.

The first high school commencement in 1875 had six graduates — four men and one woman.

In 1885, the school was remodeled and use solely as a high school.

In Fort Howard, McCartney School opened in 1890 to accommodate high school classes on the west side.

In 1893, East Side High School opened on the corner of Chicago Street and Webster Avenue and became home to secondary education on the east side.
At the time, the school was referred to as “the school on the hill” and the student body became known as the Hilltoppers.

“Old Brick” — as the Sale School was affectionately called — was then used as the administrative offices for the district.

In 1895, the Green Bay and Fort Howard districts consolidated, with an agreement to keep a high school on both the east and the west side of the river.

In the early 1900s, the Woman’s Club, in an effort to “keep boys interested in going to school” donated funding for some hand tools so the district could offer “manual training.”

“It was the first vocational subject ever offered in a Green Bay school. Green Bay was not an early bird in the state in this field, but it started the course at a time when there was great interest in the problem of teaching students ‘something practical,’” a Press Gazette article stated.

Charles Byrnes was hired to teach the course and given a handful of tools and two rooms in the basement of East High.

The course was successful and mechanical drawing and metalwork were added to the curriculum.

Byrnes was soon given two assistants and the program moved into the Sale School.

“It became known as the Sale School of Manual Arts, and the rest of the public schools sent their pupils over for a couple of hours each day,” the article said.

The program was later moved to East High when the new school was constructed on Walnut Street.

In 1957, the district offices were moved from the Sale School to the fourth floor of the newly completed Green Bay City Hall.

The Sale School building was razed in September 1957.

On Nov. 3, 1957, the First Methodist Church broke ground on the site for a $200,000 addition to their adjacent church facilities.

The addition would later house the congregation’s offices, Sunday School rooms and gathering spaces.