Photo of Cookstown Public School, which served as both a public and high school, with all of its considerable student body standing in front of the building in the early twentieth century. Originally it had been the location of the former Methodist Church. This two-storey building was situated on the corner of George and Wellington Streets in Cookstown. Two more rooms were added and some years later it was enlarged again. Some of the well-known pupils who attended were: Emily Ferguson Murphy, writer, teacher, and one of the first women to act as Magistrate in the British Empire; Nina Moore Jamieson, famous writer and teacher; and Kenneth Kidd, archaeologist and director in the Royal Ontario Museum. The photo clearly shows the brick building with its rounded arch windows and bell tower in either autumn or spring as the trees are leafless. The students are predominantly dressed in warm clothing, and a gas streetlamp is visible in the bottom right foreground of the photo.
