| Additional Information: | Moved at some point between 1873 and 1890 from the northwest corner of Fish Hatchery Road and Lacy Road to a point approximately 1/2 mile north but still along Fish Hatchery Road. It was moved again in 1989 from that location to its current location on Whalen Road and restored by the Gorman family.
2019 City of Fitchburg survey recommendation write-up:
This frame-constructed, one-room schoolhouse is sheathed with drop siding and topped with a roof covered with asphalt shingles. A single, replacement door topped with a transom is located along the entrance (north) elevation, while each of the side walls includes two, six-over-six, double-hung windows. At the front of the building and along the roof’s ridge is a school bell (not original to the building), while a brick chimney rises from the rear.
Discrepancies exist regarding the history of District No. 9 School. A schoolhouse was originally built circa 1860 at the northwest corner of Lacy and Fish Hatchery Road (in Section 9) and was, at that time, known as the Dogtown School. In September 1872, the Fitchburg Town Board held a special meeting following a request “…for the purpose of locating a schoolhouse site.” Approximately six months later, a lot was sold to the District by Edward Sweeney and the school was relocated to a hill approximately one-half mile directly north of the earlier location (and again in Section 9). It was thought that perhaps a new schoolhouse replaced the earlier building as of 1873; however, it’s possible that the earlier structure was simply moved to the new location. In any case, following the school’s relocation, whether it be a new structure or the old, it was known as Fish Hatchery School. Based on photographic evidence, combined with a student’s account, the school building was extended by four feet sometime prior to 1911. That structure served students from first through eighth grades until 1919, when a new schoolhouse (no longer extant) was built. The earlier school building was thereafter used as storage and/or stood vacant for years. In 1989, Fish Hatchery Road was to be widened and, in its way stood the schoolhouse which, by that time, was in significant disrepair. Located on land owned by Lyman McKee—a former student at the school—the schoolhouse was donated by McKee to the Gary Gorman family. The structure was then moved to Gorman family land on Whalen Road, where it remains today following a 1989-90 restoration by Gary and Kevin Gorman. The property, however, is no longer in possession of the Gorman family.
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| Bibliographic References: | For footnotes to 2019 survey write-up below, See the Historical & Architectural Resources Survey, City of Fitchburg, Dane County, Wisconsin, by Traci E. Schnell/tes | Historical Consulting, LLC, completed in 2019. |
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