ABOUT SAGE HILL
Sage Hill was started in 1996 by an enterprising husband and wife team, who had a dream of owning a bed and breakfast and restaurant, a shoestring budget and no formal hotel training. The owners purchased the former renovated school house and set out to transform it into an cozy bed and breakfast /inn and unique restaurant open year round. Although remodeled, the building still has the essence of the original schoolhouse.
Built in 1928 and located in the rural countryside between the communities of Anamoose and Martin, Sage Hill was once known as the “White School”. It was one of the first rural consolidated primary schools in North Dakota. It’s namesake was Colonel Samuel White, a Pierce County native, who led a battalion in the Spanish American War. Very progressive for the times, the school utilized a wind generator for power, boasted a hot lunch program and hot showers for both boys and girls when most homes did not have indoor plumbing. The 10,000 square foot building consisted of two large classrooms, library, two teacherages, and the traveling superintendent’s office on the second floor and the lower level consisted the gym, stage, kitchen, showers and a bus driver’s room. The third story was left unfinished and planned as room to expand for incorporation of a high school. In its heyday, approximately a 100 local children attended school. The grounds had two barns to house the six horse drawn school buses.
White School functioned as a “model school” as professors from Minot Normal School (now Minot State University), utilized the schoolhouse as a gathering place to share the new teaching methods with the rural teachers.
Due to a declining rural population, the school closed in 1968.