Recent news articles

The Herald Journal recently covered our progress at:
http://news.hjnews.com/allaccess/article_085a82c8-2fbc-11e2-bd40-001a4bcf887a.html

They also covered the Cunningham Foundation grant, at: http://news.hjnews.com/allaccess/article_a73acf14-1d7f-11e2-932c-001a4bcf887a.html

The Preston Citizen covered the recent anonymous grant, as well as the recent financial support of the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation. Following is the text of that coverage:

Work continues on OSA restoration as additional grants come in

Scaffolding and plastic tenting conceal the talents of State Stone artisans as they begin restorative rockwork on the Oneida Stake Academy building this week.

Two recent grants allowed the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation to give State Stone the go ahead to start the work. An anonymous donor provided $100,000 in October, then during the first week of November, the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation committed to covering the costs of the architectural drawings started earlier this year by Design West of Logan, Utah.

“Despite how wrenching it is for us to wait between contracts to complete the different phases of the building, the satisfaction of being able to see our planning and the generosity of donors put to work is tremendous,” said OSAF president, Nathan Hale.

State Stone owner, Keith Mackay said his artisans will first remove the red mortar that has, over the years, leached into the surrounding rock, creating a pink caste to the building. Then, using a chemical wash formulated specifically for the academy, the building will be washed.

Once the building is clean, Mackay’s crew will begin at the top of the academy, removing and replacing deteriorated stone with new stone cut from the academy’s original quarry northeast of Cub River. The new stone has been tooled to match that of the original craftsmen. Finally, new mortar will be applied.

Mackay cut the stone from the quarry in 2005. While there, remnants of former stonecutters were discovered: blackened stone from black powder blasts, rust encrusted ax heads and files. Originally, the rock was quarried in 12-foot blocks blasted from the hillside under the direction of Fred Nuffer.

Nuffer’s brother, John, was the principal mason on the building. Adding the battlements were one of the modifications he made to the original architect’s plans. John apprenticed on castles in his native country, Germany, before immigrating to Cache Valley when his family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church directed the construction of about 35 academies between Juarez, Mexico and Calgary, Canada. The bulk of them were in the intermountain west.

Nuffer is credited with building several prominent buildings in the area. In addition to the Oneida Stake Academy they included many prominent buildings now demolished: the Preston Opera House; the McCammon public school; Fairview, Mapleton and Whitney public schools; the Tabernacle at Grace; the high school at Grace; the original Preston First Ward building; and most of the business blocks as well as many of the older homes in Preston.

The Oneida Stake Academy building, originally built between 1890-1894, was used for educational purposes longer than any other academy building, except the academy in Juarez, which is still used as an academy today.

Update - Gable to be set March 28, 10 a.m.

Scheduling problems with another high profile project has prompted officials of Kepco to move the day to install the new gable on the Oneida Stake Academy to March 28, at 10 a.m., said Nathan Hale of the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation.

Kepco has been working on the City Creek project in the center of Salt Lake City. It is modern community of 700 residences, offices and retail stores built on 23 acres just south of Temple. That project will be dedicated next week, and the schedule change will allow Kepco’s crew to be present at City Creek for that event.

The beautiful new gable constructed by Kepco and State Stone will be trucked to Preston the day before it is to be installed. It is expected to take approximately four hours to lift the 16-ton rock filled galvanized steel frame into place. Crews have been preparing the 122-year-old Oneida Stake Academy building to receive the new gable.

The Oneida Stake Academy (OSA) was built by Mormon pioneers between 1890 and 1894 in order to inspire their children with a first class education. It is one is one of 35 academies built by Mormon pioneers during the late 1800s and early 1900s, between Canada and Mexico. Only five remain standing, and the OSA is the only academy building left in Idaho.

Except for the academy in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, which is still a school, the OSA remained in use as an educational facility the longest of the academies. It is also the alma mater of former US Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, and fellow OSA alum, Harold B. Lee, both of who have been presidents of the world-wide Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days Saints. Another famous alum is Samuel Cowley – first inductee into the FBI Hall of Fame for his role in taking out infamous mobster Baby Face Nelson.

For more information on, or to give to the restoration of the Oneida Stake Academy building as a community cultural center/museum of local history, please see www.oneidastakeacademy.org.

Update - OSA building's new gable parts to be assembled

The building's name carved in stone.

The frame which will hold the newly carved rock or the academy.

New end-piece and date stone. The OSA was assembled between 1890 and 1894. It was dedicated in 1895.

Pieces of the new gable for the Oneida Stake Academy building are coming together in the shops of Kepco and State Stone in Salt Lake City. Most of the stones inscribed with words have been completed, as well as end pieces, the star and date stone. These stones, as well as hand-carved face stones will be fitted into the frame, which is now being galvanized.

Once the newly carved stones are attached to the frame, it will be transported to Preston, and lifted into place.
The Oneida Stake Academy Foundation appreciates the public's support of the restoration of the Oneida Stake Academy building as a cultural center and museum of local history, said Oneida Stake Academy Foundation chairman, Nathan Hale. Once completed, the building's top floor ballroom will be available to the public for use as a setting for weddings, receptions, reunions and other community events.


Events committee formed

A recently organized events committee has begun planning events that will be sponsored through the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation upon completion of the building's restoration. The OSAF board intends to be able to open the building for use in honor of the 100th birthday of Franklin County next year.

To learn more about this historic restoration one can go to www.oneidastakeacademyfoundation.com or contact any member of the foundation: Nathan and Sydney Hale, Elliott Larsen, Larry Bradford, Lyle Fuller, Ed Moser, James Brown, Kim Wilson, Joseph Linton, Paul Judd and Necia Seamons, and Paul and Sharon Norton who serve as volunteer consultants.

Online donations now possible

Furthermore, donations to the OSA restoration can now be made online through PayPal at the above website address. To make a donation in the name of someone else, please note your intent in the special instructions box on the donation site. Donations can also be sent to the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation, P.O. Box 555, Preston, Idaho 83263. All contributions are tax-deductible.

Eccles & anonymous donor move fund-raising over half-way mark

The Oneida Stake Academy in 1917.

 The board of the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation was notified of $200,000 in grants just before Christmas. Half of it came from an anonymous alumni and the other half from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation.

“Wow, what a thrill,” said OSAF chairman, Nathan Hale. “We are very excited and very grateful for the generosity of the kind people behind these donations.”

            These funds bring the total of funds raised in 2011 to $620,000. Of that amount $505,000 is in cash and $115,000 is in-kind donations.

            “We are over half-way to the finish line,” said Hale. Another $2.9 million is expected to be needed to complete the academy’s restoration as a community center/ museum of local history.

Following direction from the board’s architect, Joseph Linton, and construction expert, Ed Moser, the board will meet in January to decide which phase of the academy’s restoration will be completed next.

Meanwhile, Keith Mackay of State Stone and his craftsmen continue to prepare the building to receive a new stone gable next month. This gable replaces one that fell out of the building in the 1960s. It is being built into a metal frame by Kepco, an engineering company located in Salt Lake City.

The following link takes you to an article published Dec. 30, 2011, by the Herald Journal in Logan, Utah, regarding this donation.
Herald Journal

Update - New rock placed above front windows

New blocks of stone sit above the Oneida Stake Academy's front windows, in preparation for the new gable which will be installed at the first of 2012.  In addition, new blocks cut from stone taken from the academy's original quarry, have replaced highly deteriorated stone. As funds are raised, craftsmen from State Stone of Salt Lake City, Utah, will replace all severely deteriorated stone on the building, such as those at the bottom left of this picture.

Update - Weather damaged rock cut away for new gable

 A close-up of the first steps to replacing the long- lost stone gable, shows where severely weather-damaged rock was cut away by craftsmen at State Stone of Salt Lake City. They will fill this space with new blocks of stone anchored to the existing building by stainless steel rods.

Over the last six months, craftsmen of State Stone have carved individual rocks for the gable by following historic photos of the academy and using a few of the original stones salvaged from the earthquake by the late Newell and Ruth Hart as guides. Kepco engineers have designed a three-paneled steel frame into which each numbered stone is being placed. This rock-filled frame will be lifted into place and a final application of historic mortar will be applied between the rock, said Mackay.

Update - Gable to be restored

          Thanks to generous individuals, the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation is able to replace the academy's front gable, which has been covered by a wooden facade for the last 49 years. The building's original stone gable fell from the building during an earthquake.

           To see an example of the process being utilized to restore the gable, see the following link: KEPCO

            According to Keith Mackay, owner of State Stone, the process being used to restore the gable is the same process used in the construction of the current Nauvoo Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and to repair the Utah State Capitol building.

            Over the last six months, craftsmen of State Stone have carved individual rocks for the gable by following historic photos of the academy and using a few of the original stones salvaged from the earthquake by the late Newell and Ruth Hart as guides. Kepco engineers have designed a steel frame into which each numbered stone is being placed. This rock-filled frame will be lifted into place and a final application of historic mortar will be applied between the rock, said Mackay.

Once the gable is in place, roofing, which began last fall, will be completed, said OSAF board member, Ed Moser. The restored gable will feature an ornament that hasn’t been seen on the academy for generations. Carved stars once crowned each of the gables, and the installation of this newly restored gable includes a star for the front of the building.

            “We are so very excited to see this part of the building put into place,” said Moser.

            The improvements made to the academy’s restoration this year have been funded by gifts from the family of an anonymous alumni, the Murdock Charitable Trust, the Idaho Transportation Department’s Scenic Byways Program, Jim Gilmur, Nathan S. Hale and dozens of individual donors this year, said Elliott Larsen, executive director of the OSAF.

            With this step completed, restoration efforts will turn back to the inside of the building, where walls and floors will be reinforced to stand another century of service.

            Fund-raising efforts are in full swing in order to help the OSAF complete the restoration project by the summer of 2013 in honor of the 100^th birthday of Franklin County, said fundraising chair, Saundra Hubbard.

            All donations to the restoration of the Oneida Stake Academy building are tax-deductible, as the foundation is registered with the IRS as a non-profit entity. To help with the academy’s restoration as a community center and museum of local history, contribution can be sent to the OSAF at P.O. Box 555, Preston, Idaho, 83263, or by making a contribution online on this blog or at www.oneidastakeacademy.org.

           

Academy Rock

Pictured are ax heads discovered in the quarry where the stone for the Oneida Stake Academy was cut from the Cub River mountainside 120 years ago. They were found when Keith Mackay of State Stone returned to the quarry in 2005 to cut rock that has been and will yet be used in the academy's restoration. 

John Nuffer was the head stone mason on the Oneida Stake Academy. He and his young wife, Louisa Zollinger, were living in Glendale (about five miles from Preston) amongst other members of Nuffer’s family who homesteaded there.

         The calling required his full attention, so the young family moved to Preston as the Hale family did.

         Although the plans for the academy came from church officials in Salt Lake City, Nuffer, who apprenticed in the city of Stuttgart, Germany, “modified the design considerably, accounting for its beautiful Gothic appearance,” stated one of his sons, Myron, in a letter to Newell Hart and reprinted in the Cache Valley News published by Hart between 1969 and 1982.

         The stone from the building came from Nuffer’s brother, Fred. He ran a quarry on his property 10 miles up Cub River Canyon from Franklin (six miles from Preston) on Sheep Creek. Stone from the quarry was used “on the better buildings going up throughout the neighboring towns,” including Logan, where it was used to build the college.

         “The contract to build the academy called for 2000 cubic feet at 25 cents per foot. The stone was used for corners, sills and water table.

         “All work was done by hand. ... We used 12-foot churn drills and blasted large blocks loose from the main ledge. We had to be careful how much powder we used so as not to shatter or cause seams in the stone.

         “We usually had to put a second charge in the opening made by the first charge to dislodge the block from the man ledge. The block so dislodged was from six to seven feet thick and about 20 feet long. From then on all tools used were hammers, axes, wedges and squares.

         “Grooves were cut with axes where ever we desired to split the block, then wedges were set in the grooves about 10 inches apart and driven in with hammers. Then we dressed them down to the right measurement, allowing one half inch for the stone cutters to take out all the tool marks we made.” (Statements of Fred Nuffer published in Cache Valley News #45, 1972.)