Lakeland Sod High School

History Nebraska's account, drawn from a 1935 relief report, fills in how the school went up. The Nebraska Emergency Relief Administration approved and paid for the work, a foreman came off the relief rolls, and sod cut from old lake beds rose between July 20 and September 10, 1934. More than fifty people came to the dedication on September 19, State Superintendent Charles W. Taylor among them. E. E. Holm taught grades nine through eleven. Robert Vanderlinde and Sterling Wales graduated first, in 1936, and the failing building closed in 1941.

What the plaque says

Lakeland Sod High School Lakeland High School was constructed 20 miles south of this site by ranchers from several rural school districts during the summer of 1934. School began that September with 11 students. Constructed of prairie sod, with a sod roof supported by pole rafters, this two-room building housed the classroom and living quarters for the teacher. Outbuildings-- two toilets and barn for the students' horses-- were also built of sod. The rooms were heated by "prairie coal" (cow chips) picked up by teachers, students, and parents. Altogether 33 students attended Lakeland, with 11 receiving high school diplomas. Some students rode horseback up to ten miles; others stayed with families and helped with chores for their room and board. With Nebraska Department of Education approval and through the efforts of the county superintendent and school patrons, students in the sparsely populated sandhills of southern Brown County received their higher education during the hard times of the 1930s. Brown County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smith Falls State Park — 27 mi
  Nebraska's highest waterfall, a spring-fed creek dropping 63 feet into a shaded canyon off the Niobrara, where Ice Age birch and an aspen hybrid found nowhere else still grow.
• Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge — 33 mi
  An army post built in 1880 to watch the Sicangu Lakota at Rosebud, turned in 1912 into a refuge where bison and elk graze above the Niobrara east of Valentine.

More markers nearby

• Ainsworth Army Air Field — 0.5 mi
• Midair Collision of P-47 "Thunderbolt" Fighter Planes, 1944 — 12 mi
• Long Pine - A Railroad Town — 16 mi
• Norden Dance Hall — 21 mi