A Meteoric Rise
From this isolated outpost in the dry, powdery dust of the barren
desert, the development of Wellfirst/Rupert was very rapid. In May of
1905, there were two small houses and a tarpaper store near the well.
The completion of the railroad in the late summer sparked the first
building boom. Every train delivered settlers, building materials and
supplies. By early fall, 400 hardy souls had put down roots in the dry
soil. By that November, Rupert had expanded to included 64 businesses,
a 100-pupil school, an opera house, a Methodist Church and a dentist.
In 1906, the population passed 600. The town had all the
hallmarks of a booming community, boasting two newspapers, a
telephone exchange, a sugar factory, bottling works, four lumber yards,
two hotels, six general merchandise stores, a candy and news store, two
hardware stores, a wall paper and paint store, a drug store, an
implement and feed store, a livery stable, two doctors, two dentists, two meat markets, two undertakers, one bakery, six
saloons, a harness shop and "real estate dealers galore," all built around the sole source of water.
Settlers coming to Rupert were families, so the need for schools quickly became apparent. When the school district was
organized in October of 1905, the Woodworth and Donaldson building on the Square was pressed into service as a make-shift
school for the district's 89 students. This continued until 1909, when the district built the Lincoln School two blocks north
and one block east of the Square.
In 1913, a grand, three-level, ultra-modern Rupert High School was built on an entire city block across the street from the
Lincoln School with virtually no houses nearby. The
high school was the first all-electric public building in
the nation. High schools and grade schools were also
built in Hebyrun, Paul, Pioneer and Acequia. In all,
twenty country schools (Pershing, Pioneer, Pringle,
Hopewell, Big Bend, Herman, Empire, Weiser, Walcott,
Riverview, Byrne, Lee Minidoka, Hall, Washington,
Lincoln, Schodde, Emerson, Rosston and Jackson)
were also scattered across the project. When the new
Minico High School was opened in 1955, the old high
school became Washington School. Lincoln and
Washington Schools were demolished in 1987.
[picture captions]
The Methodist Church - 1915
Lincoln School - 1909 and Rupert High School - 1913
