One of the only remaining LDS academy buildings still standing will face the wrecking ball in the next few weeks if money can't be found to save it by mid-June.
The Oneida Stake Academy in Preston, Idaho, has been the focus of fund-raising efforts for at least two years, but to date the $1.2 million needed to move it from its present location hasn't been raised. The building stands within just a few feet of Preston High School, whose growing student population needs additional space to grow.
After months of discussion among locals about the building's future, and a series of deadlines for fund raising having come and gone, the Preston School Board decided Wednesday night to solicit bids for demolition. The board plans to award a contract to the winning contractor on June 18.
Necia Seamons, a Preston resident who has helped spearhead efforts to save the building, said if her preservation group — Friends of the Academy — has a signed contract with a Washington state moving company to relocate the building by June 18, the school board will stay the wrecking ball.
Otherwise, "the ax is falling. If people are going to help us, they have to help us now because we're at the end of our rope."
To date, more than 250 people have donated to save the building, giving anywhere from $5 to $250,000. The latter amount was donated by Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and his wife, Gail, earlier this year. Gail Miller has ties with Franklin County.
With $650,000 already in the bank, the group needs another $500,000 immediately to move the building three blocks so it can be restored. Restoration will cost another $1.3 million, Seamons said, but she is confident the additional funds can be raised.
Built from 1890-1894 by German immigrant John Nuffer at a cost of between $20,000 and $40,000, it was one of several schools constructed by early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is believed to be the oldest of 35 such academies the church built from 1888 to 1909 at scattered locations around Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, Mexico and Canada. The academies were forerunners to the Church Educational System and seminary program, designed to provide students with both a spiritual foundation and secular training.
Until 1922 the Oneida Academy served as a combination high school and church academy for hundreds of high-school-age students. Two of its graduates later served as presidents of the LDS Church: Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson, the latter of whom was U.S. secretary of agriculture under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Fred Woods, associate professor of religion at Brigham Young University and executive director of the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, said his group has been working with Friends of the Academy and believes "it's going to be saved at the 11th hour." Even as school board members were voting to accept bids for demolition, two private foundations are looking at how they can help save the building. "Right now I think one is looking at the other to see what's going to happen."
Woods, who has written a paper on the history of the building, found a journal entry from former academy faculty member Joseph G. Nelson, who wrote of those who attended: "Pages could be filled with experiences of how these roughhewn diamond boys from the cattle ranches and the farms, and girls whose unsophistication (sic) in social affairs . . . were transformed into fine cultured students . . . and from this group Bishops, Counselors, Mayors and County and State officials were chosen in later years."
From 1922 until 1990, the building was used by the local school district. In 1977, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Seamons said Utahns can appreciate what can be done with such old buildings if they have visited the Brigham Young Academy in Provo. Preservationists tried for years to raise money for that structure, and nearly lost it to demolition before it was finally restored.
If the money is raised to move the 1,800-ton building, it will literally be sawed off its foundation and pushed onto a giant rolling platform that will inch its way down the street to Benson Park, which has been offered by the LDS Church as a permanent home. There, supporters believe it can be refurbished and become a self-supporting community cultural center. The local Chamber of Commerce has signed a letter of intent to inhabit the building and help arrange for community functions and tourist promotion.
E-mail: carrie@desnews.com