1 result for month: 03/2017


1882 – Benjamin P. Cheney Academy

Here stood the ghost of the beginning of our education legacy. Northern Pacific Railway director and our town's namesake, Benjamin P Cheney provided money and land for the building of a school at Cheney, the new Spokane County seat. The Benjamin P. Cheney Academy opened in 1882. As our town burst into being in 1880 ahead of the construction of the cross-continental Northern Pacific Railway line, the residents recognized the need for a proper school. A committee of men gathered at the Northwest Tribune newspaper office, electing Daniel F. Percival as chairman and newspaper editor, Lucien Kellogg as secretary. Alex Abernathy, of the Northern Pacific Railroad land department, knew NPRR director, Benjamin P. Cheney, and suggested that they write to Mr. Cheney for aid in building a school. General John Sprague, the railroad superintendent, offered his opinion that "Mr. Cheney might be agreeable to providing funds to build a school as a monument to his memory." Through the committee's correspondence, Mr. Cheney agreed to not only provide $10,000 to build a school, he persuaded the railroad to donate 8 acres of land, and sent two teachers, as well as crates of books....