Written by Bonita Hutcheson and Thea Hutcheson for
"Sheridan Celebrates" in 2014.
The area known as Petersburg was colonized by Swedish immigrant
Peter Magnes [also Magnus, originally Magnusson] and encompassed
the area south of [Old] Hampden Avenue to a few blocks south
of Kenyon Avenue and west of Santa Fe Drive [to The Platte River
on the west].
Magnes was a farmer/entrepreneur who brought sugar beet farming
to Colorado, and was a great contributor of civic causes and
a major political figure in Arapahoe County in its formative
years. He donated land for the school, and the railroad tracks,
and brought many Swedish immigrants to Colorado. He paid for
and published a newspaper for the immigrants.
The area's schools began “just prior to the Civil War
with a log cabin situated east of the Platte River where a toll
bridge was built [north of present-day U. S. 285, and west of
present-day Santa Fe Avenue]. “(A Historical Sketch of Petersburg
School, District 23, a document found in Petersburg School cornerstone).
Somewhere about 1893 a brick building was built on the land Magnes
deeded in exchange for one dollar. In 1909 District 22 was set
aside and became
District 23. The school board consisted of Mr. Hoskins, Joe
Brown, and Tom Skerritt. Among the first students were Sherman
and Clarence Brown, Joe, George, Charles, and Mamie Skerritt.
Some of the early teachers were Minnie Mae Bell and S. Ella Brown.
In the spring of 1926 when the school burned to the ground,
there were two teachers: Mrs. Francis Miller and Miss Belle Morris.
The cornerstone of the new building was laid 1 October of 1927.
“(A Historical Sketch of Petersburg School, District 23,
a document found in Petersburg School cornerstone).
The district serviced “the residences that were along
Natchez Court, and South Santa Fe Avenue." At that time
Natchez Court came straight off Hampden and went straight south
to where it curved into Kenyon, south of the Petersburg School,
east to the railroad tracks, north of Hamden and south of the
area adjacent to Kenyon,” said Clark Bond, a 53-year veteran
of the Sheridan School District and alumnus of Petersburg School
and Sheridan Union High School. The Petersburg school district
also encompassed much of the area down on the other side of the
Platte River, north of Hampden Avenue.
Reminiscing about his school days, and living near Petersburg
School, Bond remembers that Petersburg only went to the eighth
grade and that for a “period of time when students were
finished up at Petersburg … they [Petersburg school board]
were constantly trying to work out an arrangement for somebody
to take the students after they got out of Petersburg. There
was an agreement between Petersburg and Englewood for a long
period of time… and then around the late ‘40s, Englewood
discontinued for whatever reason and would not take Petersburg
students after that. Later other arrangements for students to
go to Denver South School or West. It left the graduates without
a sure thing after the eighth grade."
