News & Events
Update – Gable to be set March 28, 10 a.m.
Scheduling problems with another high profile project has prompted officials of Kepco to move the day to install the new gable on the Oneida Stake Academy to March 28, at 10 a.m., said Nathan Hale of the Oneida Stake Academy Foundation.
Kepco has been working on the City Creek project in the center of Salt Lake City. It is modern community of 700 residences, offices and retail stores built on 23 acres just south of Temple. That project will be dedicated next week, and the schedule change will allow Kepco’s crew to be present at City Creek for that event.
The beautiful new gable constructed by Kepco and State Stone will be trucked to Preston the day before it is to be installed. It is expected to take approximately four hours to lift the 16-ton rock filled galvanized steel frame into place. Crews have been preparing the 122-year-old Oneida Stake Academy building to receive the new gable.
The Oneida Stake Academy (OSA) was built by Mormon pioneers between 1890 and 1894 in order to inspire their children with a first class education. It is one is one of 35 academies built by Mormon pioneers during the late 1800s and early 1900s, between Canada and Mexico. Only five remain standing, and the OSA is the only academy building left in Idaho.
Except for the academy in Colonia Juarez, Mexico, which is still a school, the OSA remained in use as an educational facility the longest of the academies. It is also the alma mater of former US Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, and fellow OSA alum, Harold B. Lee, both of who have been presidents of the world-wide Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-days Saints. Another famous alum is Samuel Cowley – first inductee into the FBI Hall of Fame for his role in taking out infamous mobster Baby Face Nelson.
For more information on, or to give to the restoration of the Oneida Stake Academy building as a community cultural center/museum of local history, please see www.oneidastakeacademy.org.